Collapsing Buildings and Roadways

[Starr DiGiacomo]

Building Collapse in Manchester, UK

October 17, 2025, a playground collapsed at Zijiang School in Shaoyang City, Hunan Province, fortunately no casualties were reported. The Zijiang School playground collapse emergency response headquarters announced on Saturday that they have begun an investigation to the cause.

The emergency response headquarters confirmed that the west wall and some playgrounds of the campus of the school collapsed, and the corners of the west side of the Boxue Building (teaching building) were damaged.

ZETATALK: THE STRETCH ZONE, THAT SINKING FEELING

ZetaTalk explores the concept of Earth's "stretch zones"—regions where tectonic plates are being pulled apart due to planetary forces, particularly in anticipation of a predicted pole shift. It focuses heavily on the eastern seaboard of the U.S., the Caribbean, and parts of Europe, warning that these areas will experience significant land subsidence due to the widening of the Atlantic Rift.

Key points include:

• Historical evidence of submerged forests and civilizations off the U.S. East Coast and Bermuda.

• Predictions that areas like Florida, Georgia, and the UK will lose elevation and be permanently flooded.

• A detailed catalog of sinkholes, train derailments, infrastructure collapses, and mysterious odors from 2004–2005, interpreted as signs of Earth stretching.

• The concept of “imploding cities”, where underground infrastructure fails due to shifting rock layers.

• Warnings to relocate from vulnerable coastal and low-lying areas before the pole shift occurs.

More: https://www.zetatalk.com/index/blog1010.htm

[Starr DiGiacomo]

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/punjab/05-Sep-2015/four-killed-16-inju...

Four killed, 16 injured in garments’ factory roof collapse

September 05, 2015

LAHORE: At least four people were killed and 16 injured when a roof of a garments factory caved in at Rohi Nullah, Ferozpur Road on Friday.

The deceased were identified as Raheel Tufail, Muhammad Ali Bashir, Shahzad and Tariq Khadim. Rescue sources said the roof of the factory, which was covered with teen, was not constructed according to the building bylaws, and the people had also put heavy things on the roof, as a result the roof collapsed and killed four people.

The injured were taken to the General Hospital, where the condition of two was said to be critical. According to source, the police has arrested five people including garments factory manager and shifted them to Khana Police Station for further investigation

At least 49 labourers were working, when the roof was collapsed. Upon being informed, rescue teams, police and other departments concerned reached at the spot and started rescue operations. A number of people also participated in the rescue operation. The injured were shifted to a local hospital where doctors pronounced four persons brought dead.

According to details, a majority of the employees of the factory were daily wagers, few of them were native while others hailed from different cities of the province.

After being informed, Lahore District Coordination Officer (DCO) Capt Usman also rushed to the place and supervised the rescue work. The DCO also visited hospital to inquire the condition of injured people.

Meanwhile, the Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif has directed the departments concerned to provide best medical care facilities for the injured people. He has also sought a report from the officials concerned about the incident.

[Starr DiGiacomo]

http://abc7ny.com/news/19-year-old-worker-dies-after-brooklyn-wall-...

19-year-old worker dies after cinder block wall collapses at Williamsburg demolition site

Thursday, September 03, 2015 05:50PM

BROOKLYN, N.Y. (WABC) --

A 19-year-old construction worker had died after a wall collapsed at a building under demolition in Brooklyn.
The wall fell at a work site on Myrtle Avenue between Taaffe Place and Classon Avenue in Williamsburg just after 11:30 a.m.

Three workers injured were taken to area hospitals, where the one died a short time later. The other two are in stable condition.
Police said a cinder block wall is what fell on the workers.

This is the eighth construction death in New York City so far this year, matching the total number of construction deaths for the entire year in 2014.

[Starr DiGiacomo]

http://www.630wpro.com/2015/09/01/new-structure-collapses-on-bryant...

Six hurt as structure collapses on Bryant U. campus

Posted on September 1, 2015

Steel I-beams fell at a new Indoor Practice Facility being built at the Bryant University athletic complex in Smithfield, injuring 6 workers. Photo by Steve Klamkin WPRO News

Six construction workers were hurt Tuesday morning as a building under construction fell over on the Bryant University campus in Smithfield.

A pile of steel I-beams and supports lay on the ground after the skeleton of a new indoor athletic center collapsed injuring several people.

A spokeswoman for the private university said workers were erecting the steel frame of a new, Indoor Practice Facility when the structure collapsed. Six workers were sent to the hospital with non-life threatening injuries. Rhode Island Hospital later reported the six were in good condition.

Smithfield Fire Chief Robert Seltzer says the call came in around 8:15 A.M.

“We’re not sure exactly what caused the building collapse to take place. Currently, everything’s safe at the scene,” Seltzer said. “We got everybody transported pretty quickly.”

A WPRO listener was playing tennis at Bryant when the collapsed occurred. He said he heard a loud noise of steel crashing and then a short time later emergency sirens.

“I thought maybe the crane had tipped over.”

“It was just a creaky sound, we heard a metal sound, a crunching,” said a man who witnessed the collapse did not want to give his name.

“It kept going, it seemed like there was almost like a domino effect. That’s what we felt. We felt the ground shake and everyhing, you know?” he said.

Chief Seltzer said the Federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration would conduct an investigation.

“The construction just started recently, there were erecting the steel. Obviously something this morning went wrong as they were trying to continue on with their job of putting the steel up and everything collapsed,” Seltzer said.

Two hours after the collapse, Bryant University Assistant Vice President of Communications, Elizabeth O’Neil  released a statement saying:

“As you have no doubt already learned, a serious construction site accident occurred this morning at the indoor practice facility, located in the back of the Bryant campus adjacent to the baseball fields.

The steel which was being erected collapsed forward, resulting in at least six injuries. Thankfully, none of these appear to be life-threatening. No Bryant students or staff were near the site.

We are cooperating fully with authorities and will advise as more facts become available to us.

This incident will have no impact on the opening of school as students return this weekend and classes begin Sept. 8″

[Starr DiGiacomo]

http://www.thestar.com.my/News/Nation/2015/09/02/Collapsed-signboar...

Updated: Wednesday September 2, 2015 MYT 7:10:21 AM

Collapsed signboard causes massive traffic jam

Big obstacle: The collapsed signboard blocking traffic flow in Klang.

KLANG: An overhead signboard near Batu 4 along Jalan Meru collapsed at about 6am yesterday, blocking access to the busy main road usually used by motorists on their way to work.

Cars and heavy vehicles were caught off-guard, causing a massive traffic snarl in the area.

North Klang traffic police officers cleared the debris and directed the traffic after being alerted.

Part of the road was reopened to motorists at about 8am, but there were still crawls as motorists slowed down to look at the collapsed structure.

North Klang deputy OCPD Supt Nor Omar Sappi said a lorry’s tipper rose suddenly and hit the signboard, causing the structure to collapse.

“No injuries have been reported,” he said.

[Starr DiGiacomo]

http://www.gulf-times.com/qatar/178/details/452958/18-injured-as-ce...

18 injured as ceiling of shopping centre collapses

Ambulances and rescue teams were deployed to help injured people. PICTURE: Jayan Orma

9:42 PM

29

August 2015

Eighteen people were injured after a section of the interior ceiling of Ramez shopping centre near the Ramada signals on Salwa road collapsed.

A source at the Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC) said all the victims were brought immediately to the Hamad General Hospital for treatment and no casualty had been reported .

This was also confirmed by Qatar’s Ministry of Interior on its Twitter page. The posting said: “Partial collapse of the roof inside a supermarket on Salwa Road, today. Civil Defense evacuated store without serious injury or death.”

An employee of a nearby establishment told Gulf Times that he saw 12 to 15 people running from Ramez Marketing Co. towards the Al Maha Centre at around 11:30am.

He said police were the first to respond to the incident, blocking the entry to the shopping complex and preventing passersby from crowding the area. All shoppers and staff at Ramez were asked to immediately leave the building.

HMC ambulances, Civil Defence, and Qatar’s Search and Rescue teams also responded quickly to help the injured persons, according to the employee.

“As far as I know Ramez officials had a plan to move. They wanted to leave the current old building and transfer their operations to a new location in Abu Hamour seven months ago, ” he said. “I am not sure what happened next,” he added.

Shops and other business establishments at nearby Al Maha Centre such as Jarir Bookstore, Fifty One East, and Darwish Holdings, which are only a few metres away from Ramez, were forced to down shutters after electricity was cut off to some of the buildings in the area, a number of security guards said.

One of the guards added he thought there was a fire after noticing people running away from the affected outlet. "A few minutes later, a number of rescue trucks were seen deployed to the area."

The staff of another shop in the vicinity said Ramez used to receive a good number of visitors during weekends and there could have been many shoppers at the store when the ceiling came crashing down .

[M. Difato]

Another collapse reported at Shelbyville flume

Another collapse has been reported at a large underground pipe in Shelbyville.

Councilman Henry Fieldhaus said a portion of the flume collapsed Sunday morning between the fire and police stations, likely due to heavy rains over the weekend.

The collapse has caused the fire station, police department and county jail to be without water.

The flume leads the city’s storm water to the Duck River. It’s been in place since 1962.

There have been two previous collapses at the flume this year; one in June and one in January.

“The replacement tube has been manufactured, it’s on a truck on its way here, and we had anticipated starting the replacement process for the first two failures areas tomorrow,” said Jay Johnson, city manager of Shelbyville.

That work was set to cost the city $1.6 million, according to the city manager.

With Sunday’s collapse, the cost can only go up from there.

Fieldhaus says he would like to look into the possibility of getting federal help, by having the part of the flume declared a disaster area.

As of Sunday night the collapse has not been ruled weather related because there is a lot of assessing and investigating that still has to be done.

“This is an extraordinary event and by all indications it was not lack of maintenance or that the tube was in trouble, it appears to be an external event that created this problem,” said Johnson.

Source: http://www.wsmv.com/story/29860202/another-collapse-reported-at-she...

[Tracie Crespo]

www.usatoday.com/story/travel/destinations/2015/08/12/interstate-65...

Sinking bridge closes 50 miles of I-65 in Indiana

LAFAYETTE, Ind. — An I-65 bridge that dropped 9 inches last week while construction crews worked to widen it has closed 50 miles of a major artery between Indianapolis and Chicago.

And northbound traffic on Interstate 65 will have to take a 60-mile detour around the bridge over Wildcat Creek for the foreseeable future, Indiana Department of Transportation officials said. Traffic is being diverted from I-65 just north of Lebanon, Ind., to U.S. 52, then to Indiana 28 at Clarks Hill and to U.S. 231 at Romney.

"We would hesitate to give any kind of timeline at this time," state highway Commissioner Brandye Hendrickson said. "It will probably be later in the week before we really get our arms around some of the more viable solutions."

An average of 25,000 vehicles had been crossing the northbound Wildcat Creek bridge each day, according to a traffic count conducted earlier this year.

"The full closure of a major interstate is understandably frustrating and difficult to bear," she said in asking for motorists' patience.

Problems first closed the bridge abruptly at about 2:30 p.m. ET Aug. 4 when contractors noticed unusual movement in the bridge, which was being worked on as part of a project to widen the interstate to six lanes from four in the area. Officials believe soil conditions and an underground spring in addition to pile driving that began the previous day caused the bridge to settle.

Some northbound motorists were trapped, so construction crews on the south side of the bridge laid down gravel, creating a lane to allow them to turn around. Just before 4 p.m., Indiana State Policeblocked southbound traffic to allow semis and motorists to make a U turn on the newly created road.

Since then, state officials opened the bridge, built in 1968, on the evening of Aug. 5 but closed it again Friday when they weren't satisfied with the stability of temporary steel supports. A May 19 inspection rated the Wildcat Creek bridge's substructure, piers and abutments to be in poor condition but other parts of the bridge were considered fair and satisfactory, so it was not closed then.

Last month, an eastbound I-10 bridge over Tex Wash near Desert Center, Calif., collapsed during a major storm after fast-moving flood waters shifted dirt that held its foundation in place. A pickup truck was caught in the collapse, and its driver was trapped for three hours with two broken ribs, a shattered knee and lacerations to his liver.

The bridge about 175 miles east of Los Angeles, which carried about 20,000 vehicles per day and was part of the major link to Phoenix, had received an "A" rating last year, federal records showed.

California Department of Transportation officials reopened that stretch of road July 24. But the westbound bridge is handling traffic in both directions, and state officials said rebuilding the collapsed span would take two months and $5 million.

In Indiana, using the southbound Wildcat Creek bridge to carry I-65 traffic in both directions is not an option, said Will Wingfield, an Indiana Transportation Departmentspokesman. Lanes would be too narrow even before adding a jersey barrier between the lanes of opposing traffic.

No estimate for the cost of repairs has been released.

The route for the detour, although long, was chosen to keep traffic off congested city streets in Lafayette, he said.

Travelers had been spending as long as four hours in jammed traffic though officials added temporary traffic lights at key intersections over the weekend that reduced the drive time to closer to an hour.

A 185-mile trip from Indianapolis to Chicago generally takes about 3 hours, according to Google Maps.

"It is a mess," Roy Westbrook of Valparaiso, Ind., said last week.

Sherman Wood, fleet manager for Fraley & Schilling inRushville, Ind., said truck drivers will be hit in the pocketbook.

"They get paid by the mile, so for every minute they aren't moving, they aren't getting paid," Wood said.

If a delay is long enough, a driver could arrive at a store after it closes, which could mean a next-day delivery and a bigger loss, he said. Long traffic delays also could force drivers to take themselves off the road because they aren't allowed to drive more than 11 hours straight because of federal rules.

Passenger bus services Greyhound and Megabus are telling customers to expect a half hour to an hour delay on routes through Lafayette. Amtrak could not say whether the number of riders on the Hoosier State passenger line from Indianapolis to Chicago has increased since the bridge closed.

http://a.tiles.mapbox.com/v3/usatodaygraphics.basemap/5/8/12.png

http://www.gannett-cdn.com/-mm-/22a246a83a872747f97cbade0403fb27b43...

[Tracie Crespo]

www.startribune.com/first-avenue-ceiling-collapse-injures-3-or-4/32...

First Avenue ceiling collapse injures three

Fire officials are assessing integrity of the building. 

A ceiling collapse at the legendary downtown Minneapolis nightclub First Avenue sent three people to the hospital Wednesday night, and Minneapolis firefighters are evaluating the integrity of the building.

A 30-foot-by-30-foot section gave way during a concert about 10 p.m., the Minneapolis Fire Department said.

“A large portion of the ceiling fell and took out water pipes with it,” said Nate Kranz, First Avenue general manager. “We have no idea why or how it happened. We won’t know anything about this until tomorrow. It was a terrible surprise.”

Kranz said a couple of people were taken out by ambulance. Hennepin County Medical Center spokeswoman Christine Hill said three people were brought into the emergency room and are in satisfactory condition with non-life-threatening injuries.

The ceiling that collapsed was over the balcony DJ booth at the back of the dance floor, Kranz said. A section fell onto the floor about midway through the headlining set by Canadian metal band Theory of a Deadman. The show was stopped, and the 1,000 or so fans were immediately evacuated. Fire crews responding to the club shut off water to the area, the Fire Department said.

Todd Johnson, of Elk River, was at the concert with his family and said the band had just finished its fourth song, when the musicians suddenly ran offstage.

Then he saw that a part of the ceiling had fallen and water was streaming from the ceiling.

About a minute later a second piece of the ceiling fell, he said. At first some people thought the water was coming from the sprinkler system, but there was too much for that to be the source.

Jennifer Johnson said the second piece that fell was twice as big as the first, prompting some screams from the crowd.

Denay Riser, of White Bear Lake, said there was smoke everywhere and some screaming, but she didn’t think anything of it at first because she thought it was part of the show.

At that point, said Nathan Boyd, the staff advised everybody to walk out. The evacuation was orderly, he said.

Mersadees Sten of Gilbert, Minn., drove to town for the concert with her friend Eric Johnson, of Virginia.

They were standing by the stage when they heard a noise like rushing water and saw the band jump off the stage. Then a huge chunk of ceiling fell behind them.

A handful of people received minor injuries. One woman near the falling tile was bleeding and immediately tended to by paramedics.

“It seemed completely random. People were yelling to get the hell out,” Sten said.

She said they had been standing in that spot a few minutes before, so they were very lucky. “For whatever reason we decided to get closer to the stage,” she said.

Other fans said they were impressed with the staff’s handling of the situation.

One of the best known music rooms in the United States, the landmark nightclub opened in 1970 and has since presented a who’s who of popular music, from Tina Turner and U2 to Jessie J and Prince, who famously filmed his 1984 movie “Purple Rain” there. The building was originally a Greyhound Bus depot, which opened in 1937.

The Mann theater family sold the building in 2000 to First Avenue’s ownership team at the time, including longtime accountant Byron Frank, whose daughter Dayna Frank and their family are the current owners.

The club installed a new lighting rig over its big stage a few weeks ago, but Kranz said the work done on that was on the other side of the room from where the pieces fell and likely not a contributing factor. In fact, he said, “That was another case where we just had [inspectors] in here looking everything over.”

Kranz said the club will be closed Thursday, and inspectors will be in the club Thursday morning to determine “how it happened and what to do to fix it so it doesn’t happen again.”

As for upcoming shows, she said, “If I’m told we’re going to be dark, we’ll have to figure that out.”

No band was scheduled for Thursday. On Friday, the bluegrass band Ginstrings is scheduled, and Saturday a sold-out show by Grammy winning R&B star Miguel.

“That’s the big one,” Kranz said.

Beyond that, though, next week is uncharacteristically quiet for the club, aside from shows in its neighboring small 7th Street Entry.

http://stmedia.stimg.co/1afirst081315.jpg?w=263

[M. Difato]

ST. LOUIS • A gaping hole opened in the side of a five-story building on Laclede’s Landing as bricks fell with a rumble Wednesday afternoon.
No one was injured in the collapse, but the building was left with extensive damage.."

http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/side-of-laclede...

[Starr DiGiacomo]

http://uncova.com/seven-killed-in-guinea-bissau-building-collapse

SEVEN KILLED IN GUINEA BISSAU BUILDING COLLAPSE

August 5, 2015

Seven people lost their lives on Tuesday after a three-storey building collapsed in Canchungo town, 74 km north of Guinea Bissau capital, Bissau, an official source has said.

The country’s Civilian Protection Service told the media “this is a provisional figure since three other people in critical condition are hospitalized and many more are still under the rubble of the collapsed building.”

Although the service did not reveal the number of people still trapped in the building, eyewitnesses told Xinhua there could be about 20 people.

The Guinea Bissau government has created a crisis center to monitor the development of the situation.