The Yun Men Tsui Ti (雲門翠堤) commercial and residential complex, the building most seriously damaged in Tuesday’s magnitude 6.0 Hualien earthquake, is now the focus of an investigation to determine if human error was behind the partial collapse of four structures in downtown Hualien.
Hualien District Prosecutors’ Office head prosecutor Wang Yi-jen (王怡仁) said his office has retrieved the building construction licenses, building use permits and applications for alterations for all four of the buildings that suffered serious damage in the earthquake.
The buildings are the Yun Men Tsui Ti building, the Marshal Hotel (統帥飯店) and two apartment buildings.
Photo: EPA-EFE
The Yun Men Tsui Ti building is the focus of the investigation, because of the number of deaths — nine out of the 12 confirmed — attributed to its partial collapse, Wang said.
Civil engineers have said that the method used to connect the building’s steel bars likely contributed to the serious casualties reported at the site.
Architecture experts have also raised questions over the building’s receding facade and the ground-floor arcade, which was taller than it should have been, as it was used for stores.
Photo: CNA
According to construction regulations, the steel bars used in constructing the building should have been 1.3 times their actual lengths so they could be layered upon one another to enhance the building’s structural integrity, but they were not assembled in this manner, Tainan Structural Engineer Association director-general Huang Chia-jui (黃嘉瑞) and association member Wang Wu-lung (王武龍) said.
“As a result, the columns snapped like ropes,” Huang said, while Wang added that the way the steel bars snapped appeared “suspicious.”
By itself, each connection point between steel bars is weak, so the legal construction method is to make several connections converge, thereby enhancing the sturdiness of beams and columns, and Yun Men Tsui Ti had “clearly fallen short” in this regard, Huang said.
Based on a preliminary review of the building, the steel bars were not layered, which highlights problems in its safety, Executive Yuan Public Construction Commission Chairman Wu Tze-cheng (吳澤成) said.
However, the disproportionately heavy upper levels of the building likely caused the columns to give out, he said.
Yun Men Tsui Ti, like all other residential buildings in its proximity, sits on the Milun fault, but was the only one that collapsed during the earthquake, which raised questions over its construction quality, National Taiwan University geology professor Chen Wen-shan (陳文山) said.
The building collapsed in a roughly north-to-south direction, but it was the steel bars facing the north that were broken and exposed, indicating that that the building’s construction was likely flawed, New Taipei City Professional Civil Engineers Association chairman James Yu (余烈) said.
Additional reporting by CNA
DEATH THREAT: A MAC official said that it has urged Beijing to avoid creating barriers that would impede exchanges across the Strait, but it continues to do so People should avoid unnecessary travel to China after Beijing issued 22 guidelines allowing its courts to try in absentia and sentence to death “Taiwan independence separatists,” the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said yesterday as it raised its travel alert for China, including Hong Kong and Macau, to “orange.” The guidelines published last week “severely threaten the personal safety of Taiwanese traveling to China, Hong Kong and Macau,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesman Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) told a news conference in Taipei. “Following a comprehensive assessment, the government considers it necessary to elevate the travel alert to orange from yellow,” Liang said. Beijing has
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) yesterday said that the Chinese Communist Party was planning and implementing “major” reforms, ahead of a political conclave that is expected to put economic recovery high on the agenda. Chinese policymakers have struggled to reignite growth since late 2022, when restrictions put in place due to the COVID-19 pandemic were lifted. The world’s second-largest economy is beset by a debt crisis in the property sector, persistently low consumption and high unemployment among young people. Policymakers “are planning and implementing major measures to further deepen reform in a comprehensive manner,” Xi said in a speech at the Great Hall
CIVIL DEFENSE: More reservists in alternative service would help establish a sound civil defense system for use in wartime and during natural disasters, Kuma Academy’s CEO said While a total of 120,000 reservists are expected to be called up for alternative reserve drills this year, compared with the 6,505 drilled last year, the number has been revised to 58,000 due to a postponed training date, Deputy Minster of the Interior Ma Shih-yuan (馬士元) said. In principle, the ministry still aims to call up 120,000 reservists for alternative reserve drills next year, he said, but the actual number would not be decided later until after this year’s evaluation. The increase follows a Legislative Yuan request that the Ministry of the Interior address low recruitment rates, which it made while reviewing
SOLUTIONS NEEDED: Taiwan must attract about 400,000 to 500,000 skilled foreign workers due to population decline, the minister of economic affairs said in Washington President William Lai’s (賴清德) administration is considering a plan to import labor to deal with an impending shortage of engineers and other highly skilled workers, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) said in Washington on Tuesday. Kuo was leading a delegation attending the SelectUSA Investment Summit. Taiwan must attract about 400,000 to 500,000 skilled foreign workers for high-end manufacturing jobs by 2040, he said. Ministry of Economic Affairs officials are still calculating the precise number of workers that are needed, as it works on loosening immigration restrictions and creating incentives, Kuo said. Taiwanese firms operating factories in the US and other countries would