Typhoon Gaemi brought torrents of rain, and with it, the parapet on a building in Hualien City came crashing down onto a parked car and killed a 45-year-old woman who was a passenger inside it. Her seven-year-old daughter was taken to hospital and is still in intensive care.
Article 77 of the Building Act (建築法) states that the owners and users of buildings are responsible for the upkeep of structural safety of properties. However, the walls of many older buildings across the country have structural issues and cannot be repaired easily.
Apart from requiring a professional assessment to determine whether outer walls need renovating or improvements — most people do not have the knowledge or expertise to make that determination, even when disregarding the regulations — repairing a single wall could easily cost more than NT$100,000. Even including local subsidies, many residents are simply unable to afford or bear responsibility of such a burden.
All these factors add up to create the expanding problem of structural deterioration.
If structural safety is to be maintained, residents of high-rise communities first ought to ensure that their walls and structural elements are regularly inspected and fixed, and that they have some knowledge of renovations. They should not procrastinate.
Beyond that, there is a need for official, objective third-party organizations to help with assessments. They could create a budget for maintenance and actuarial allocation methods for subsidies. With all of that, repairs could become systematized.
The buildings sorely in need of repairs are usually older structures. Most residents are retirees or those who lack financial means. Some residents are so destitute that they only have the four walls around them and little else. There is little chance that residents with limited financial resources can afford to maintain their buildings.
In Japan’s case, it has long had a repair reserve fund (shuzen tsumitatekin) in place to manage structural renovation assessments and repairs. A fee is collected each month for the reserve fund by the building community’s management association and the money must be used to carry out repairs every 15 years.
With this honed, localized system, Japan’s central government does not even have to get involved. Taiwan could benefit from adopting a similar approach.
For suspects in tort cases involving falling objects and injury, structural assessments and repairs should be mandatory. If repairs are put off, it might be too late to prevent injury for someone unlucky enough to be passing by. Towering apartment buildings and high-rise apartment communities could learn to become more self-sufficient and take responsibility for maintaining structural safety.
If everyone makes changes, communities would face far fewer instances involving concrete or debris crashing down on someone. In being more proactive, frequent “disasters raining down from the sky” can be avoided.
Dino Wei is an engineer.
Translated by Tim Smith
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