VnExpress newswire Friday had an interview with deputy head of Hanoi’s Construction Association Pham Sy Liem about the recent five-storey collapse in the capital that happened late March.
Watch the building collapse
As an experienced construction specialist and a person who conducted investigation of the collapse, in your opinion what is the exact cause of the incident?
April 1 afternoon, I arrived at the site and heard that the building was used to house a lot of small rooms, and the owner recently wants to reconstruct it for a pizza shop, which allegedly requires bigger rooms. Therefore, the owner decided to demolish a partitioning wall and then replaced it with glasses to widen space.
Therefore, the building is not strong enough to stand. It began to tilt and then crumbled.
What do you think when Dong Da district’s government said that the building owner just only fixed home décor but indeed the authorities themselves failed to control what the owner did?
They didn’t repair their home décor but demolished the structure. I wonder whether the owner asked for local authorities’ permission or not. However, I think the government must bear part of the responsibility in this case.
Who will take on primary responsibility?
The owner has an architect to design the building, but personally thought, he is just specialized in designing but he has not a wide knowledge of the building’s structure. He must shoulder responsibility and offer compensation for the owner. However, the owner should also pay compensation to damaged buildings around.
In your opinion, which lessons local authorities should take from the accident?
The government should offer tighter regulations about renovating and repairing houses. In addition, they should send staff to inspect the city’s construction works.
Although the collapse fortunately didn’t cause any loss of human lives, the government should strictly punish violators as a warning to others. In the past, there was a fire in an apartment block in Thanh Xuan district killing two, but no one has been charged so far.
Earlier, a five-storey building located on Hanoi’s Huynh Thuc Khang Street completely collapsed on March 31.
The entire building crumbled towards the alley No. 49, knocking down the balcony of the opposite apartment before badly destroying Dang Khoa laptop shop located on the first floor.
