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Thailand/Myanmar Earthquake: VIDEO Dramatic collapse of a high rise in Bankok 2

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Viewed a very long apparently government report yesterday on Youtube. Cannot find it today. Very critical of the situation. Apparently AI composed as I have never seen such a complete report this soon. I searched YouTube and Perplexity for the report; maybe there are better sources some place. Some discussion on the quality of the rebar and the history of the construction. Interesting to note that this is a government building and lots of flat post tensioned slabs and sections.
 
Viewed a very long apparently government report yesterday on Youtube. Cannot find it today. Very critical of the situation. Apparently AI composed as I have never seen such a complete report this soon. I searched YouTube and Perplexity for the report; maybe there are better sources some place. Some discussion on the quality of the rebar and the history of the construction. Interesting to note that this is a government building and lots of flat post tensioned slabs and sections.
Found much interesting comments and discussions on X. Getting to be my go to source - but still being careful. Center core column structure and flat slab construction. Similar to construction in the 60's that I am familiar with.
 
Video clip (half speed) of the south elevation, isolated at the left column/floor connection (higher resolution attached). Although this approach eliminates most indication of structural oscillation, it does show the significant east/west sway of the crane, and by inference, that of the structure.

South Elevation.Slomo.Color.640.GIF

If the core west elevation load path is compromised (fuchsia), the burden increasingly falls on the north/south elevations. The core pass-through configuration from floor to floor can create a scenario where that load is increasingly concentrated on a smaller support element at the lower floors, which would be the final point of failure prior to the collapse.

Passthroughs.jpg
 

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  • South Elevation.Slomo.Color.GIF
    South Elevation.Slomo.Color.GIF
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Chinese Railway Intl Company facing investigations in Thailand. Interesting that this company was also involved in the concrete canopy collapse at the Novi Sad train station in Serbia in Nov 2024, claiming 16 lives.
 
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The tower structure and crane masthead appear to be a simple oscillating system, in other words the apparent location of the crane masthead indicates where the tower used to be. When the video is isolated on the tower structure, the crane appears to be moving independently but we know that it's not. Significantly we see the tower collapse as the crane leans furthest to the east (above animated GIF) (and I'll argue the movement is ovoid, ENE/WSW), so when the tower is most heavily imposed on the southwest corner of the core structure. If the tower carries its momentum past its breaking point, the direction of collapse is to the southwest which we see in the results.

I also see a mechanism for the south adjoining structure to transfer energy to the tower core via the N/S slab drop-downs (though the linkage is only at the center two tower supports) and likely took out the south tower supports after the core failed.

SW corner.2.jpg
south lean.jpg
 
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It's not obvious that the building is moving that much in the video, until you notice those curtains/tarps alternately moving in and out.
 
The tower crane is not stationery.
In one video it may be seen that the boom is flopping.
 
It's definitely a dynamic environment up there. The sway of the crane could/would be amplifying the movement of the tower. A very sad situation. I noticed the curtains move as well.
 
That core provided a huge eccentricity. In addition, there was almost no redistribution. Reinforcing may not have been as continuous as it could have been.
 

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