I hope these buildings on Wenyi West Road (and Guicui Road) have good foundations – they are are awfully narrow.

Nine held in connection to collapsed Shanghai apartment building

Yesterday’s front pages were largely devoted to a 13-storey riverbank apartment that tipped over in Shanghai on the morning of June 27, killing one worker inside.

The building remained in the news today: according to a report in The Beijing News, nine people, including the “developer, contractor, and quality supervisor,” have been detained in connection to the accident.

The 132 households living nearby returned to their homes yesterday after an examination ruled out the possibility that a similar accident would strike again. An investigation of cause of the collapse is under way, but explanations are only speculative at the moment.

Many people believe that inferior construction materials lead to the disaster, based on the photos showing snapped concrete piles that are hollow, with steel reinforcing bars that are thin and sparse.

Others speculate that the breakage of a river levee a few days prior…

Read full article at Danwei.org