Go to ground.news/plainlydifficult to give it a try. If you sign up through my link you’ll get 40% off the Vantage plan, which is what I use to get unlimited access to all features. I think Ground News is doing important work and I hope you’ll check them out. ►Thanks for watching, check out me other bits! ►My new EP: madebyjohn.bandcamp.com/album/retail-simulator ►Outro Song: ua-cam.com/video/LJVNt_ruEJ0/v-deo.htmlsi=KaHhrFbCex3kJBKk ►Instagram: instagram.com/plainly.john/ ►Patreon: www.patreon.com/Plainlydifficult ►Merch: plainly-difficult.creator-spring.com ►Twitter:twitter.com/Plainly_D ►Sources: learningfromearthquakes.org/2016-02-05-southern-taiwan/images/2016_02_05_southern_taiwan/pdfs/Specific_Building_Information/2WeiguanBuilding-3.pdf www.hilarispublisher.com/open-access/disaster-prevention-measures-for-building-safety-communities-using-thecollapse-of-the-weiguan-jinlong-residential-complex-from-the-2223-5833-1000S3_010.pdf www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2016/02/09/2003639126
That bingo card needs to be revamped as a safety poster. Any more than a certain number of squares on a row or a column and it is time to stop work until its sorted, leave the company or report to the authorities.
John! happy 1M!!!! but I must warn you that you committed one of the greatest sins in communist China today, and that would be referring to Taiwan as a "country" lol I seriously would think hard before going there anytime soon. stay safe, bud!
The premise of ground.news is flawed because true leftwing news isn't really a thing beyond small alternative media outlets. This is because by it's very nature leftwing politics is anti capitalist (or at the very least highly skeptical, it's anti-corporate, pro unionist, pro the public sector, )and so the big corporate news outlets pushing rightwing narratives have the monopoly on the industry. They have the deepest pockets. They are funded by advertising, by big business and other vested interest groups. No one can compete with these people when it comes to churning out endless bullshit. What is referred to as leftwing is in all reality going to be liberal. Liberals are capitalists, they are not leftwingers. Liberals will jump in bed with fascists if it serves their self interests. Liberals will condone war crimes if it suits their bank balance and political aims. Liberals will justify keeping children in poverty spinning some BS about there being no money left despite us owning and printing our own sovereign currency. Leftists won't. Best thing to do is get your information from economists, science, academia etc; experts within their fields. Ignore most of the guff that passes for news. That includes the Guardian, FT and Indie too.
@@万恶共匪毒害中华 Not nearly as commonly. Most countries have it to some extent, the difference is how widespread it is in China. Especially in government buildings like schools.
Wait a moment, so all 5 responsible people were charged for their criminal negligent AND convicted AND it was not just a small fine but an actual sentence? ...So much to learn from Taiwan!
The builders intentionally sabotaged the building to save a few hundred dollars in concrete. They KNEW the building would collapse in an earthquake and earthquakes are inevitable in that area. So they knowingly and intentionally killed over a hundred people for a few hundred bucks and only got 5 years of prison?
I didn't live too far from Tainan when this happened! I didn't even know the earthquake happened because as you said: most buildings are constructed with the idea that there will be earthquakes. I slept through it only wake up to my mother calling from America thinking I was in danger because she saw the building collapse on the news that evening and thought I might somehow be affected. I thought my Chinese was bad and I wasn't properly understanding when people were saying "the buildings were made from trash." I thought "Surely this is just an expression I don't understand or I'm hearing wrong." Only this year, seeing coverage in English have I finally understood that they were indeed telling me the building was made from actual, literal trash.
The bank who refused to give that potential buyer the loan without specifying why, letting them believe they were seen as peasants, after the tower collapse: _We gotchu fam, just in a different way._
@@TheHuesSciTech The building had been placed on the "unsafe building list (yellow)" by structural technicians during other earthquakes before the collapse, indicating that it required structural repairs before it could continue to be used. Although it has undergone structural repairs, being listed on this list indicates that there are defects in the construction, so banks will deny loans for the house.
@@Jason-b9t But then why would it be only one person and “unknown reasons”? Wouldn’t it be everyone who applied for one, and “because it’s on the structurally unsound” list? Just one person for “unknown reasons” just sounds like they didn’t pass a credit check or something.
@@JakeCWolf You can only get so close without the tones. But the romanization of the names often omits the tone markers for some reason (I find this frustrating as an illiterate speaker). Other than that the romanization in the article at 11:04 is also an IMO less easily pronounceable one compared to Hanyu Pinyin (which is now the official romanization in Taiwan as well, I gather, having already been so in the rest of the Chinese speaking world) hence the struggle.
@@finxy3500 Both Wade-Giles and PinYin are terrible. The creator of PinYin was a lazy sod who took Wade-Giles and just modified it as lazily as he could. So the hs- words from WG became x- in PY. And the unaspirated ch- in WG because zh- in PY when it should have been j-. Not to mention that PY add q- when ch- was correct.
My father was an engineer and had several projects taken from him and reassigned to other engineers because he refused to compromise safety, and he eventually left that company because of the ethics issue. Seriously, you can say no, and if your employer is that unethical start looking elsewhere.
I had the dirt floor of my barn in Hungary concreted by a couple of locals. I had calculated the quantities of material needed but when the job was finished I found there were 15 bags of cement left over. They thought they were doing me a favour by making a weaker mix but I had bought that much cement because I wanted proper concrete!
@@BlackPill-pu4vi With lots of water to make it easier to shovel or move around, also results in weaker concrete (aka, lower compressive strength if you are in the know).
I've lived and worked in ROK, Singapore, India, and Japan. In Japan and Singapore I never felt that construction was poor in any facility we worked in and around, but in India and ROK, you just never knew what was under the paint. In one facility, we were drilling into the floor to anchor new equipment and instead of the usual dust and neat hole for the anchor point, entire pieces of the floor were breaking into gravel and coming out. The concrete used was way too fragile and we had to stop work while the entire upper floor was removed, new support structure built, and new concrete poured. No, the government did not come in and inspect anything. So your guess is as good as a goat's whether anything was done correctly. Compare that to the same type of building in Singapore where drilling anchor points in the floors and ceilings was very difficult due to the quality structure and concrete used. These were problems we never found in Europe or even southwest Asia unless the building was pre WW2 vintage. Cheating building codes appears to be a national sport in most of the world--if there are even any at all...we won't even go into what passes for Seismic Zone 4 construction in most places...it is frightening. Unfortunately, if new home construction in the US is any indication, we are becoming just like those other places....
A lot of this tracks with how much corruption there is. Officials giving permits and doing inspections to enforce construction standards, simply accept bribes. Until enough s hits the fan that the public outrage forces them to clean up their act. I presume Singapore and Japan went through this phase post-WWII, before they got the level of corruption reduced. I know Korea (Korean War ended 1953) suffered from a lot of corruption until the 1990s (Sampoong department store collapse, a few other notable building and bridge collapses). So i suspect things have gradually improved since then. Taiwan (split from China in 1949) is probably on a similar timeline. China has modernized relatively recently, so is rife with corruption. It's why citizens need to be active in opposing corruption. Not meekly accepting it as "that's just the way it is" and paying the bribes.
Using empty vessels as filler is insane. When I had a cement water cistern built last year the contractors had to build these tall narrow molds, and used a Vibrating wand on the end of a cable to shake any air bubbles out to prevent voids. They wilfully added large voids in lines throughout the cement... they might as well have installed God-sized labels reading "tear here."
We do use spacers to willfully create voids in concrete to lighten the load and reduce the amount of concrete used, but we do it in engineered and well measured ways. The oil cans were likely neither.
@@ptefar Earthquake resistant buildings frequently use box sections for rigidity. So do we really know whether those oil cans were simply dumped into a hollow cavity. I have seen hollow sections filled with rubbish before, the major concern is fire.
That's standard operating practice for construction workers. Remember that a lot of construction workers are in that line of work because the can't get a job anywhere else (it's either that or enlist in the military). This shows how important detailed and thorough inspection and supervision is and also how important that the word if those who are doing the inspection is taken.
It used to be here in the US, when a building contract was begun, it was bonded, "a form of protection for the owner against non-payment, lack of performance, company default, and warranty issues." In other words it was insured that money would be available to finish the job per plans and specifications, even if the contractor couldn't finish the job.
I’m amazed that the top people were actually held accountable, but 5-year prison sentences don’t seem like enough for the number of deaths or the sheer audacity of building a residential structure with not only cheap concrete, but supports that included styrofoam and large , empty oil canisters! That’s what children use to build forts and hideouts in their backyards when large boxes from new furniture and/or home appliances aren’t available! I wonder if any of the survivors or families of the dead have tried to make those punishments more “permanent” since all of the criminals would be out of prison by now.
It's up to the legislator (i.e. parliament) to decide what the maximum sentence is. The judiciary cannot give them a 15 year term if the maximum sentence is 5 years.
cant imagine 5 years in a Taiwan prison is quite the same as 5 in a western one, especially for a poor-little-rich-boy. Just heavily biased speculation on my part, though.
@@StriKe_jk And how often have we actually seen this sort of criminal negligence in the West? Come on, give us a recent example instead of this bar talk.
If you're looking for more subjects like this, the 2011 Christchurch earthquake in New Zealand (another member of the ring of fire) resulted in 185 deaths, 115 of which were from a single building. There was a lot of drama over the collapse of the Canterbury TV building, including the revelation that the engineer overseeing its construction faked his degree by stealing someone else's identity!
Yep - CTV was terrible. Also I seem to remember the design engineer had never designed anything over two stories, was left unsupervised, and council staff were pressured to sign the building off even though they weren't 100% sure about it. And did anyone get charged over it? This was the NZ construction industry's Erebus.
Mixing things like polystyrene beads/balls into concrete is not abnormal in the construction industry, it is a legitimate way of making lightweight concrete panels that reduce the strain on the rest of a building's structure. But you find them in floors - not in support walls or columns - where the load-bearing capacity of a thick concrete panel is not needed and having a 100% concrete floor of the given thickness would put unnecessary weight on the supporting walls.
It never ceases to amaze me just how much stuff in our lives depends on science and engineering we know nothing about. Soil science, concrete science, weight distribution, metallurgy, construction techniques, not to mention manufacturing of everything that goes into it. Countless people devoted their lives to researching each of those subjects, and we only realize it when something goes wrong. Whether it's building deep-see submarines or constructing buildings, if the scientists tell you your corner cutting is dangerous, consider that they may know more about it than you do.
Have you ever covered the Milavče or Pardubice train crashes? I love Czech trains, but I'm fascinated as to how they had two head-on collisions in just a few years.
That's odd, in a way, because usually Ceske Drahy have an excellent reputation. Yes, I like something on that, maybe an "even the good guys have their bad moments" type of look at it. (But be careful, John hasn't even done Hixon yet... Only joking, John!)😅
I'm no builder but even I know that there are two types of walls in a building: load-bearing and partition type. You can remove partition type and load-bearing you leave alone.
Unfortunately this kind of "modification" is common in Taiwan. In big cities officals will come and inspect the building before issuing permission. But in rural area....well, I for one live in a modified house
Exactly the same type of modification, too: one wall removed. Juding by the fact that I'm still typing, I think the team who did it did a good-ish job?
Nice to see the story from my home country being covered. Those kind of disaster should not have happened in the first place and should stand as a reminder to our future generations.
Thanks for another interesting video, John. With the added factor of the soil subsidence this makes it not unlike the video from the other week, where a tower block collapsed as a unit because of a mud slide.
The issue with the shops on the ground floor happened in Turkey also. Most of the apartments in Australia seem to have the commercial space empty on the ground floor as they either charge too much or it is not worth the business' while to use it.
O gosh, yes, I visited the shopping district in Istanbul in Turkiye about a decade ago. The shopping is great, but those buildings and roads reminded me of Egypt.
Congratulations on 1M subscribers! I glad so many others see in your content what I’ve seen for several years. Coming to you from a soon to be hot and sweaty corner of Wisconsin, USA.
Thanks for covering this case! I actually recall waking up and seeing this on the news the following morning. And congrats on 1mil! -From a hot and humid room outside Taipei.
PLEASE do a video on the 1977 Granville Train Disaster in Sydney Australia. I watched a short documentary about it but was missing your concise and insightful analysis desperately. 🙏 Thank you
I really enjoy your videos, even though people sadly lose their lives. You present information in a way that’s easily understandable and accessible. And with that my brain can hold onto it better and I can impress my partner and friends with my knowledge of weird events.
Another suggestion, also from the beautiful East Kootenays of British Columbia; July 2018, Fernie BC Fernie Memorial Arena "At the Fernie Memorial Arena, workers were performing maintenance on the ice plant when there was a release of ammonia gas. Three workers were fatally injured from exposure to the ammonia." This tradegy, too, reformed some long outdated work safe practices in industry. Great show, I enjoy learning how these events changed procedures and requirements as a net benefit result to humanity... we are doomed, if we cannot learn from our mistakes...!! ✌🇨🇦🙂
I dig that music! Reminds me of that show long ago on MTV called AMP. Its exactly the same as what they would show right before and after advertisements, with even similar graphics. I can't help but like it.
Thanks for explaining this, John. I remember the earthquake reports, and seeing videos of the collapsed building. But little was said about the real reasons for the collapse. We can only wonder about how many other places around the world might be built so shoddily. Disasters waiting to happen. And thanks for showing your 'Bingo card' for longer. It allows time for the video to be paused. 🙂👍
Much love from the muggy shores of Lake Michigan and thanks for another video to get me through data entry at work! If you ever consider a shipwreck video, we've got lots of options to choose from in the Great Lakes.
Great video, as usual! Another example of a single building collapse causing the majority of lives lost in an earthquake is the Canterbury Television (CTV) building that collapsed here in Christchurch on 22 Feb 2011 when the city was hit by a shallow M6.3 quake. Of the 185 deaths in that quake, 115 were due to the collapse of the CTV building. Investigations found that there were serious construction defects, and damage to the building in the earlier 4 Sep 2010 M7.1 quake had not been fully understood.
@@PlainlyDifficult Truly. Words cannot give enough to how thankful I am for your videos and I cannot express my appreciation enough. And good call with the adjustments in 3.1
Could you do a video on the airplane hanger that collapsed at the boise idaho air port on the 31st of January 2024? Killed 3 injured 9. Reports say the builder ignored warning signs and had complete disregard for building standards.
Jon: "...The company used watered down concrete, and reinforced the building with pretty much any junk they could get their hands on." Me: I used to live in Turkey, and that "concrete" was used in buildings *all over* the place. I'm surprised the earthquake we experienced didn't drop our apartment building.
Southern California has had its full share of poor quality structure failures. in the Northridge quake, lots of buildings collapsed because there were no load bearing walls on the first retail floor. Boston is made of brick ... in the 1639era a huge quake shook the area which would have leveled every building in the city should that quake happen again today.
It was an infamous 'bad building'. The couple quoted in the Taipei Times were not the only ones who had real estate loans refused: most banks in Taiwan had a secret list of buildings they would not give real estate loans on as they didn't trust the collateral. The Weiguan building was one, so was my old apartment.
@@MrTonypace Relatives of the builders and local politicians live in the building I currently live in so it probably has a decent chance of holding up during the next earthquake. Knock on wood
Here in Dublin we had a block of flats built without proper fire retarding walls, not discovered untill after people had bought and moved in. Nothing to do with me says the developer, I have a paper stating all is correct!!!
It’s actually amazing how even in 2011, you didn’t see super terrible damage after the earthquake in Japan. The 2016 Taiwan earthquake looked really bad.
In the U.S., this is one of those cases where the judge probably would've ordered each 5 year sentence for homicide through professional negligence, would have to be served consecutively (so 500 years total for 100 deaths). Rather than concurrently (5 years total).
Great show, John...!! I have a suggestion for an episode; July 2007, Kimberley, BC, Canada "Kim Weitzel, 44, was assigned to the Kimberley station. Kim and her partner, Shawn Currier, were responding to a call inside a water-testing shed at the decommissioned Sullivan Mine. Both Kim and Shawn, along with two mine employees, were overcome by a low oxygen atmosphere. All four tragically lost their lives." The impact of this tragedy changed, forever, training requirements in British Columbia as well as Canada 🇨🇦
In know this one isn’t about rail accidents but you tubers don’t seem to cover a rail accident in Staffordshire UK know as the “Colwich rail accident” it’s worth a read and maybe Plainly difficult could do an episode on that?
Ring of Fire includes Alaska and the west coast of the United States. People don’t always think of the U.S. (or at least its west coast) as a major part of the Ring of Fire - think of the famous San Andreas fault and many other smaller fault lines in the area AND the less well known Cascadia Zone which can, and has, created earthquakes that can (and have) dwarfed San Andreas earthquakes. The west coasts of Washington, Oregon, British Columbia and Alaska along with California are all in major danger from their places in the Ring of Fire.
Holy crap. When you originally said that there was oil cans in the walls I had something completely different in mind and then seeing them in watered down concrete walls was just kinda horrifying
Wait hold on. "Polystyrene mixed in with the concrete"? I had to pause the video re-check that it was the stuff I thought it was. Of course it is. Like.... how?
Uhm, polystyrene as aggregate in concrete is a legit practice (when done correctly). It is sometimes used in high rise buildings to reduce the weight of the concrete in the upper floors. If done correctly, it is completely safe and even contributes to a tall building's stability.
This starts with a large very obvious problem with the design. In a seismic zone you don't want to build a building with a lot of columns in the upper floors and fewer columns on the ground floor, this is called "soft story". Any tall building that can fall over and remain relatively intact is relatively strong at least in its upper floors, even with various problems during construction. Start with a design that has a soft story at the bottom and a lot of weight and stiffness above, construct it poorly, maybe throw in some soft soils caused by water leak, and you have a big problem.
check out the digester explosion at the paper mill in Panama city, Florida. i was sitting in the parking lot when it happened with my mom, dad had just walked through there, blew up behind him.
Glad to see a new upload today! Dealing with a death in the family right now so this is an absolutely welcome distraction. Thanks again for all do. You deserve every one of your OVER 1 MILLION SUBSXSUBSCRIBERS!!!
Grieving is hell. I’m sorry you’re going through this. When grief hits me, I tell myself that the pain of the loss is the price we pay for loving and being loved. It doesn’t really make it hurt less, but it frames the pain in a way that makes it have more of a purpose.
@@ChaosMagnet that is actually very well said and a perspective I hadn't heard nor considered before. Thank you for responding and for the words of wisdom. They are genuinely appreciated.
@@MMSMLUNWINPP you’re very welcome. Be gentle with yourself during this time. Get as much rest as you can, eat right wherever possible, and do something you consider fun that gets your body moving. It’s easy to get stuck inside our own head when going through grief, and we forget about the needs of our physical self when our mental and emotional self is so much in the forefront. You’re stronger than you ever know. I hope that your week is going as well as is possible.
Civil engineer, here. Out of US. The 5 year sentence, though a max, seems too small for the structural engineer. I do hope he is also permanently banned from practicing engineering and construction.
Next time on Plainly Difficult: John's plainly difficult attempt to find a room air conditioner in London as the heatwave surpasses 50⁰ C. 😮 Stay cool and hydrated!
Go to ground.news/plainlydifficult to give it a try. If you sign up through my link you’ll get 40% off the Vantage plan, which is what I use to get unlimited access to all features. I think Ground News is doing important work and I hope you’ll check them out.
►Thanks for watching, check out me other bits!
►My new EP: madebyjohn.bandcamp.com/album/retail-simulator
►Outro Song: ua-cam.com/video/LJVNt_ruEJ0/v-deo.htmlsi=KaHhrFbCex3kJBKk
►Instagram: instagram.com/plainly.john/
►Patreon: www.patreon.com/Plainlydifficult
►Merch: plainly-difficult.creator-spring.com
►Twitter:twitter.com/Plainly_D
►Sources:
learningfromearthquakes.org/2016-02-05-southern-taiwan/images/2016_02_05_southern_taiwan/pdfs/Specific_Building_Information/2WeiguanBuilding-3.pdf
www.hilarispublisher.com/open-access/disaster-prevention-measures-for-building-safety-communities-using-thecollapse-of-the-weiguan-jinlong-residential-complex-from-the-2223-5833-1000S3_010.pdf
www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2016/02/09/2003639126
That bingo card needs to be revamped as a safety poster. Any more than a certain number of squares on a row or a column and it is time to stop work until its sorted, leave the company or report to the authorities.
John! happy 1M!!!! but I must warn you that you committed one of the greatest sins in communist China today, and that would be referring to Taiwan as a "country" lol I seriously would think hard before going there anytime soon. stay safe, bud!
The premise of ground.news is flawed because true leftwing news isn't really a thing beyond small alternative media outlets. This is because by it's very nature leftwing politics is anti capitalist (or at the very least highly skeptical, it's anti-corporate, pro unionist, pro the public sector, )and so the big corporate news outlets pushing rightwing narratives have the monopoly on the industry. They have the deepest pockets. They are funded by advertising, by big business and other vested interest groups. No one can compete with these people when it comes to churning out endless bullshit.
What is referred to as leftwing is in all reality going to be liberal. Liberals are capitalists, they are not leftwingers. Liberals will jump in bed with fascists if it serves their self interests. Liberals will condone war crimes if it suits their bank balance and political aims. Liberals will justify keeping children in poverty spinning some BS about there being no money left despite us owning and printing our own sovereign currency. Leftists won't.
Best thing to do is get your information from economists, science, academia etc; experts within their fields. Ignore most of the guff that passes for news. That includes the Guardian, FT and Indie too.
Have you heard of Colwich rail accident? might be worth an episode 👍
Scam
Lesson learned: only use full oil cans and load-bearing rated styrofoam.
Wise Alec ! I'm a civil engineer and appreciate your sarcasm.
Didn't know Taiwan has Tofu Dreg Construction too
@@万恶共匪毒害中华 Cheating builders are everywhere, the question is more how widespread corruption and nonconformant builders are.
It looks like mainland china practises infiltrated the workplace , would not be suprised if there is a connection somewhere.
@@万恶共匪毒害中华 Not nearly as commonly. Most countries have it to some extent, the difference is how widespread it is in China. Especially in government buildings like schools.
Wait a moment, so all 5 responsible people were charged for their criminal negligent AND convicted AND it was not just a small fine but an actual sentence? ...So much to learn from Taiwan!
Bloody shocking, the rest of the world should take many, many notes!
Yeah, like not renting a place in a tower built before 2000.
The builders intentionally sabotaged the building to save a few hundred dollars in concrete. They KNEW the building would collapse in an earthquake and earthquakes are inevitable in that area. So they knowingly and intentionally killed over a hundred people for a few hundred bucks and only got 5 years of prison?
West Taiwan is a cesspool of corruption and incompetence, so why not strive to be the complete opposite
They had no money or powerful friends to shield them.
I didn't live too far from Tainan when this happened! I didn't even know the earthquake happened because as you said: most buildings are constructed with the idea that there will be earthquakes. I slept through it only wake up to my mother calling from America thinking I was in danger because she saw the building collapse on the news that evening and thought I might somehow be affected. I thought my Chinese was bad and I wasn't properly understanding when people were saying "the buildings were made from trash." I thought "Surely this is just an expression I don't understand or I'm hearing wrong." Only this year, seeing coverage in English have I finally understood that they were indeed telling me the building was made from actual, literal trash.
The bank who refused to give that potential buyer the loan without specifying why, letting them believe they were seen as peasants, after the tower collapse:
_We gotchu fam, just in a different way._
Probably the last thing you'd ever expect. A bank saving somones life
Why is everyone hearing "unspecified reasons" and assuming it was due to the bank knowing the structure was unsound???
@@TheHuesSciTech The building had been placed on the "unsafe building list (yellow)" by structural technicians during other earthquakes before the collapse, indicating that it required structural repairs before it could continue to be used. Although it has undergone structural repairs, being listed on this list indicates that there are defects in the construction, so banks will deny loans for the house.
If no one got me, I know apparently classist Taiwanese banks got me.
@@Jason-b9t But then why would it be only one person and “unknown reasons”? Wouldn’t it be everyone who applied for one, and “because it’s on the structurally unsound” list? Just one person for “unknown reasons” just sounds like they didn’t pass a credit check or something.
The last time I was this early for a Plainly Difficult video, the building was still standing!
😂😂
😂😂
XD
Lol was it on the video about bridges? 😅
As a Taiwanese, thank you for covering this incident, congrats on 1mil!
Thank you
As a non-Taiwanese I am curious, how good was John's pronunciation of Taiwanese names?
@@JakeCWolf You can only get so close without the tones. But the romanization of the names often omits the tone markers for some reason (I find this frustrating as an illiterate speaker). Other than that the romanization in the article at 11:04 is also an IMO less easily pronounceable one compared to Hanyu Pinyin (which is now the official romanization in Taiwan as well, I gather, having already been so in the rest of the Chinese speaking world) hence the struggle.
@@JakeCWolf Terrible. Absolutely terrible.
@@finxy3500 Both Wade-Giles and PinYin are terrible. The creator of PinYin was a lazy sod who took Wade-Giles and just modified it as lazily as he could. So the hs- words from WG became x- in PY. And the unaspirated ch- in WG because zh- in PY when it should have been j-. Not to mention that PY add q- when ch- was correct.
My father was an engineer and had several projects taken from him and reassigned to other engineers because he refused to compromise safety, and he eventually left that company because of the ethics issue. Seriously, you can say no, and if your employer is that unethical start looking elsewhere.
Reminds me of what commonly happens in the concrete testing and geotechnical inspection business.
A professional engineer is obliged to say no, one hopes. Then it wants a moral compass. Good on yer Dad, mate.
I had the dirt floor of my barn in Hungary concreted by a couple of locals. I had calculated the quantities of material needed but when the job was finished I found there were 15 bags of cement left over. They thought they were doing me a favour by making a weaker mix but I had bought that much cement because I wanted proper concrete!
Thin and runny concrete is easier to mix and spreads better. In other words, they were being lazy.
So did you do anything about it? Stronger remake?
Or nothing?
@@BlackPill-pu4vi With lots of water to make it easier to shovel or move around, also results in weaker concrete (aka, lower compressive strength if you are in the know).
@@billdang3953 Yes indeed. I didn't want to go into detail since U-Pipe dislikes thorough commentary.
Will your barn become a video on this channel?
Another episode in the continuing series “Why we have all those annoying government regulations. And why we should enforce them.”
I've lived and worked in ROK, Singapore, India, and Japan. In Japan and Singapore I never felt that construction was poor in any facility we worked in and around, but in India and ROK, you just never knew what was under the paint. In one facility, we were drilling into the floor to anchor new equipment and instead of the usual dust and neat hole for the anchor point, entire pieces of the floor were breaking into gravel and coming out. The concrete used was way too fragile and we had to stop work while the entire upper floor was removed, new support structure built, and new concrete poured. No, the government did not come in and inspect anything. So your guess is as good as a goat's whether anything was done correctly. Compare that to the same type of building in Singapore where drilling anchor points in the floors and ceilings was very difficult due to the quality structure and concrete used. These were problems we never found in Europe or even southwest Asia unless the building was pre WW2 vintage.
Cheating building codes appears to be a national sport in most of the world--if there are even any at all...we won't even go into what passes for Seismic Zone 4 construction in most places...it is frightening. Unfortunately, if new home construction in the US is any indication, we are becoming just like those other places....
Tried to find it online but wasn’t successful: Which region of country is referred to as ROK?
@@Volvo_EG South Korea (Republic of Korea)
@@Volvo_EGROK is the Republic of Korea, better known as South Korea. The North is the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea, DPRK.
Thank you guys. I was so close in thinking but didn’t thought about it - have a good weekend all!
A lot of this tracks with how much corruption there is. Officials giving permits and doing inspections to enforce construction standards, simply accept bribes. Until enough s hits the fan that the public outrage forces them to clean up their act.
I presume Singapore and Japan went through this phase post-WWII, before they got the level of corruption reduced. I know Korea (Korean War ended 1953) suffered from a lot of corruption until the 1990s (Sampoong department store collapse, a few other notable building and bridge collapses). So i suspect things have gradually improved since then. Taiwan (split from China in 1949) is probably on a similar timeline. China has modernized relatively recently, so is rife with corruption.
It's why citizens need to be active in opposing corruption. Not meekly accepting it as "that's just the way it is" and paying the bribes.
Using empty vessels as filler is insane. When I had a cement water cistern built last year the contractors had to build these tall narrow molds, and used a Vibrating wand on the end of a cable to shake any air bubbles out to prevent voids. They wilfully added large voids in lines throughout the cement... they might as well have installed God-sized labels reading "tear here."
We do use spacers to willfully create voids in concrete to lighten the load and reduce the amount of concrete used, but we do it in engineered and well measured ways.
The oil cans were likely neither.
Concrete, not cement
@@ptefar Earthquake resistant buildings frequently use box sections for rigidity. So do we really know whether those oil cans were simply dumped into a hollow cavity.
I have seen hollow sections filled with rubbish before, the major concern is fire.
That's standard operating practice for construction workers. Remember that a lot of construction workers are in that line of work because the can't get a job anywhere else (it's either that or enlist in the military). This shows how important detailed and thorough inspection and supervision is and also how important that the word if those who are doing the inspection is taken.
@@ptefar And I am pretty sure this is supposed to be done only in parts mainly experiencing bending loads like floors/ceilings.
It used to be here in the US, when a building contract was begun, it was bonded, "a form of protection for the owner against non-payment, lack of performance, company default, and warranty issues." In other words it was insured that money would be available to finish the job per plans and specifications, even if the contractor couldn't finish the job.
I’m amazed that the top people were actually held accountable, but 5-year prison sentences don’t seem like enough for the number of deaths or the sheer audacity of building a residential structure with not only cheap concrete, but supports that included styrofoam and large , empty oil canisters! That’s what children use to build forts and hideouts in their backyards when large boxes from new furniture and/or home appliances aren’t available!
I wonder if any of the survivors or families of the dead have tried to make those punishments more “permanent” since all of the criminals would be out of prison by now.
In Eastern culture they go for the bosses. In Western countries we try to pin anything on anyone but it ends up with nothing sticks, go figure
It's up to the legislator (i.e. parliament) to decide what the maximum sentence is. The judiciary cannot give them a 15 year term if the maximum sentence is 5 years.
cant imagine 5 years in a Taiwan prison is quite the same as 5 in a western one, especially for a poor-little-rich-boy.
Just heavily biased speculation on my part, though.
Its still 5 years more than they would have gotten in any western country. Also they would have made some random worker the scapegoat
@@StriKe_jk And how often have we actually seen this sort of criminal negligence in the West? Come on, give us a recent example instead of this bar talk.
If you're looking for more subjects like this, the 2011 Christchurch earthquake in New Zealand (another member of the ring of fire) resulted in 185 deaths, 115 of which were from a single building. There was a lot of drama over the collapse of the Canterbury TV building, including the revelation that the engineer overseeing its construction faked his degree by stealing someone else's identity!
Did not expected this plot twist in the end 😳
Yep - CTV was terrible. Also I seem to remember the design engineer had never designed anything over two stories, was left unsupervised, and council staff were pressured to sign the building off even though they weren't 100% sure about it. And did anyone get charged over it? This was the NZ construction industry's Erebus.
@@stevekingdon Absolutely. It's been 13 years and I'm still angry about it
Tofu Dreg Concrete strikes again with the added bonus of internal oil cans. Thanks John....
Thank you
Mixing things like polystyrene beads/balls into concrete is not abnormal in the construction industry, it is a legitimate way of making lightweight concrete panels that reduce the strain on the rest of a building's structure. But you find them in floors - not in support walls or columns - where the load-bearing capacity of a thick concrete panel is not needed and having a 100% concrete floor of the given thickness would put unnecessary weight on the supporting walls.
"shaky ground syndrome" 😂
🫡
It never ceases to amaze me just how much stuff in our lives depends on science and engineering we know nothing about. Soil science, concrete science, weight distribution, metallurgy, construction techniques, not to mention manufacturing of everything that goes into it. Countless people devoted their lives to researching each of those subjects, and we only realize it when something goes wrong. Whether it's building deep-see submarines or constructing buildings, if the scientists tell you your corner cutting is dangerous, consider that they may know more about it than you do.
One reason I find the recent-ish public distrust in science terrifying.
Ah yes, those well known building strengthening materials. Empty oil cans & polystyrene.
Our superheros John and Safety Director "I got my job cause I know someone" are back for another episode!
Have you ever covered the Milavče or Pardubice train crashes? I love Czech trains, but I'm fascinated as to how they had two head-on collisions in just a few years.
I’ve never heard of them thanks for the suggestion
That's odd, in a way, because usually Ceske Drahy have an excellent reputation. Yes, I like something on that, maybe an "even the good guys have their bad moments" type of look at it. (But be careful, John hasn't even done Hixon yet... Only joking, John!)😅
Another excellent video, John. Watching this from a very hot and sticky corner of Eastern Ontario, Canada 🇨🇦
Enjoy the heat!!
@@PlainlyDifficultAs a Saskatchewaner; no, I don't think I will. At least not if it gets up to 43°c again! Idk which I hate more, the +40 or the -40.
@hanzzel6086 ...not so much the heat as the humidity.😮.
Congratulations on 1 million enjoy your uploads and appreciate the time and dedication you give in telling these unfortunate events
Thank you!!
@@PlainlyDifficult You are very welcome Sir
grats on 1mil subs man u certainly earned it!
Thank you
I love getting the feeling that John simply leans over to look out the window to assess the current weather at the end of each voiceover session. XD
How else would he do it? :)
Me listening at 3:54
They knocked support walls for more tenant space?!
I'm no builder but even I know that there are two types of walls in a building: load-bearing and partition type. You can remove partition type and load-bearing you leave alone.
Unfortunately this kind of "modification" is common in Taiwan. In big cities officals will come and inspect the building before issuing permission. But in rural area....well, I for one live in a modified house
Exactly the same type of modification, too: one wall removed.
Juding by the fact that I'm still typing, I think the team who did it did a good-ish job?
Nice to see the story from my home country being covered. Those kind of disaster should not have happened in the first place and should stand as a reminder to our future generations.
Unfortunately a lot of reminders have not stood the test of time... 😢
Thanks for another interesting video, John. With the added factor of the soil subsidence this makes it not unlike the video from the other week, where a tower block collapsed as a unit because of a mud slide.
The issue with the shops on the ground floor happened in Turkey also. Most of the apartments in Australia seem to have the commercial space empty on the ground floor as they either charge too much or it is not worth the business' while to use it.
O gosh, yes, I visited the shopping district in Istanbul in Turkiye about a decade ago. The shopping is great, but those buildings and roads reminded me of Egypt.
@@TimChuma Have a similar problem in California, “soft structure” buildings with carports or retail space on the first floor.
Congratulations on 1M subscribers! I glad so many others see in your content what I’ve seen for several years. Coming to you from a soon to be hot and sweaty corner of Wisconsin, USA.
Thanks for covering this case! I actually recall waking up and seeing this on the news the following morning. And congrats on 1mil!
-From a hot and humid room outside Taipei.
Congrats on 1M subscribers, John! I am very happy to have been with you all the way.
Did you get a new mic, or change your sound editing? This video sounds great. Your soft-spoken voice is so clear now.
PLEASE do a video on the 1977 Granville Train Disaster in Sydney Australia. I watched a short documentary about it but was missing your concise and insightful analysis desperately. 🙏 Thank you
Thank you for the upload enjoying from the Carribean 🇹🇹! ❤
Thank you!!
When you said "oil cans in the concrete" in the opening, that is absolutely not what my mental was. Just wow.
Always enjoy a plainly difficult video on a Saturday morning!
Thank you!!
@@PlainlyDifficult you're welcome!
I really enjoy your videos, even though people sadly lose their lives. You present information in a way that’s easily understandable and accessible. And with that my brain can hold onto it better and I can impress my partner and friends with my knowledge of weird events.
'the ring of fire is not the day after spicy food'
Thanks, now I need to clean up after doing a spit-take 😂
Or it could refer to a rather well known Johnny Cash song.
Checking in from a sunny , yet HUMID part of Michigan..Rock on!!!
Another suggestion, also from the beautiful East Kootenays of British Columbia;
July 2018, Fernie BC
Fernie Memorial Arena
"At the Fernie Memorial Arena, workers were performing maintenance on the ice plant when there was a release of ammonia gas. Three workers were fatally injured from exposure to the ammonia."
This tradegy, too, reformed some long outdated work safe practices in industry.
Great show, I enjoy learning how these events changed procedures and requirements as a net benefit result to humanity... we are doomed, if we cannot learn from our mistakes...!! ✌🇨🇦🙂
Congratulations on 1 million i started watching your videos a few months ago and all the videos of yours that i watched have been quality
I dig that music! Reminds me of that show long ago on MTV called AMP. Its exactly the same as what they would show right before and after advertisements, with even similar graphics. I can't help but like it.
yoo im really glad seeing ur channel doing so well! Thank you for making these! ❤
the "LET'S BOUNCE" and clip art combos are making me geek every damn time. Cheers to these uploads mate
Enjoy the warmth john
As I sit here freezing 12 25
Thanks for explaining this, John. I remember the earthquake reports, and seeing videos of the collapsed building. But little was said about the real reasons for the collapse. We can only wonder about how many other places around the world might be built so shoddily. Disasters waiting to happen. And thanks for showing your 'Bingo card' for longer. It allows time for the video to be paused. 🙂👍
Good on you for the 'ring of fire' joke 😂
Our old pizza shop had a pizza called Ring of Fire, it was medium spicy. For the truly insane, the hotter version was The Afterburner.
I thought he was going to make a Johnny cash joke, but he went in a different direction :P
Much love from the muggy shores of Lake Michigan and thanks for another video to get me through data entry at work! If you ever consider a shipwreck video, we've got lots of options to choose from in the Great Lakes.
Congratulations on 1M subscribers! Watching from a hot and muggy southern Ontario, Canada.
Congrats on 1M!!! You deserve it!
Holy moly.... oil cans. That just takes the cake. Insanity. Those pictures are confronting. Unbelievable.
At this point on UA-cam, I can't imagine anyone asking, "What is GroundNews?"
It's hard to imagine the horror. Especially, if you had loved ones in adjoining rooms you were unable to get to.
Those oil cans in the structure 😱😱😱
Great video, as usual! Another example of a single building collapse causing the majority of lives lost in an earthquake is the Canterbury Television (CTV) building that collapsed here in Christchurch on 22 Feb 2011 when the city was hit by a shallow M6.3 quake. Of the 185 deaths in that quake, 115 were due to the collapse of the CTV building. Investigations found that there were serious construction defects, and damage to the building in the earlier 4 Sep 2010 M7.1 quake had not been fully understood.
Thank you for another perfect video and the perfect time, my friend :)
Thank you
@@PlainlyDifficult Truly. Words cannot give enough to how thankful I am for your videos and I cannot express my appreciation enough. And good call with the adjustments in 3.1
Could you do a video on the airplane hanger that collapsed at the boise idaho air port on the 31st of January 2024? Killed 3 injured 9. Reports say the builder ignored warning signs and had complete disregard for building standards.
Jon: "...The company used watered down concrete, and reinforced the building with pretty much any junk they could get their hands on."
Me: I used to live in Turkey, and that "concrete" was used in buildings *all over* the place. I'm surprised the earthquake we experienced didn't drop our apartment building.
There is going to be a lot more stories like this coming out of China
Sadly true
Taiwan seems to have gotten their act together for the most part now, China however...
Sadly true, but they've got plenty of people to spare
@@paulreilly3904They have a lot of 25+ year olds, and not enough kids to replace most of them. They aren't a bad off as South Korea, but...
@@PlainlyDifficultI've been subbed to you since around 10K. I'm so proud of how you've grown your channel.
Southern California has had its full share of poor quality structure failures. in the Northridge quake, lots of buildings collapsed because there were no load bearing walls on the first retail floor. Boston is made of brick ... in the 1639era a huge quake shook the area which would have leveled every building in the city should that quake happen again today.
I like how the construction workers, in your cartoon like reenactments, all have their hands in their pockets
I heard at the time that locals knew the construction was dodgy and wouldn’t live there. So the victims were mostly out-of-towners
It was an infamous 'bad building'. The couple quoted in the Taipei Times were not the only ones who had real estate loans refused: most banks in Taiwan had a secret list of buildings they would not give real estate loans on as they didn't trust the collateral. The Weiguan building was one, so was my old apartment.
@@MrTonypace Relatives of the builders and local politicians live in the building I currently live in so it probably has a decent chance of holding up during the next earthquake. Knock on wood
Here in Dublin we had a block of flats built without proper fire retarding walls, not discovered untill after people had bought and moved in.
Nothing to do with me says the developer, I have a paper stating all is correct!!!
It’s actually amazing how even in 2011, you didn’t see super terrible damage after the earthquake in Japan. The 2016 Taiwan earthquake looked really bad.
In the U.S., this is one of those cases where the judge probably would've ordered each 5 year sentence for homicide through professional negligence, would have to be served consecutively (so 500 years total for 100 deaths). Rather than concurrently (5 years total).
Thank you John, always a great show!
Using polystyrene in concrete is not weird and not necessarily a bad thing. It is often used to reduce the weight of concrete sections.
Just not in structural load bearing sections is the thing
Damn, the willful cheating with building materials was absolutely criminal. I'm glad the guilty got custodial sentences.
Great show, John...!!
I have a suggestion for an episode;
July 2007, Kimberley, BC, Canada
"Kim Weitzel, 44, was assigned to the Kimberley station. Kim and her partner, Shawn Currier, were responding to a call inside a water-testing shed at the decommissioned Sullivan Mine. Both Kim and Shawn, along with two mine employees, were overcome by a low oxygen atmosphere. All four tragically lost their lives."
The impact of this tragedy changed, forever, training requirements in British Columbia as well as Canada 🇨🇦
Congratulations on the 1 million mark!
Thank you
I think you should have a level for "future deaths due to lingering after effects are likely."
In know this one isn’t about rail accidents but you tubers don’t seem to cover a rail accident in Staffordshire UK know as the “Colwich rail accident” it’s worth a read and maybe Plainly difficult could do an episode on that?
Ring of Fire includes Alaska and the west coast of the United States. People don’t always think of the U.S. (or at least its west coast) as a major part of the Ring of Fire - think of the famous San Andreas fault and many other smaller fault lines in the area AND the less well known Cascadia Zone which can, and has, created earthquakes that can (and have) dwarfed San Andreas earthquakes. The west coasts of Washington, Oregon, British Columbia and Alaska along with California are all in major danger from their places in the Ring of Fire.
?????
Thumbs up for another sunny day in southern london UK
Brilliant work. How many died pls John. I watched twice but missed the roll.
"raised concerns" - the building already collapsed, i think we are well beyond the "raising concerns" stage here.
When John says it is "Awfully Built" in the title, you know it's bad!
(Well done on the 1 Million!)
Holy crap. When you originally said that there was oil cans in the walls I had something completely different in mind and then seeing them in watered down concrete walls was just kinda horrifying
Wait hold on. "Polystyrene mixed in with the concrete"?
I had to pause the video re-check that it was the stuff I thought it was. Of course it is. Like.... how?
Stretch it out, make it go further I guess. Cheaper than construction sand if you have offcuts from inflation panels lying and.
Uhm, polystyrene as aggregate in concrete is a legit practice (when done correctly). It is sometimes used in high rise buildings to reduce the weight of the concrete in the upper floors. If done correctly, it is completely safe and even contributes to a tall building's stability.
This starts with a large very obvious problem with the design. In a seismic zone you don't want to build a building with a lot of columns in the upper floors and fewer columns on the ground floor, this is called "soft story". Any tall building that can fall over and remain relatively intact is relatively strong at least in its upper floors, even with various problems during construction. Start with a design that has a soft story at the bottom and a lot of weight and stiffness above, construct it poorly, maybe throw in some soft soils caused by water leak, and you have a big problem.
You are so reliable that if I get confused about what day it is, when your video comes out, I know it is Saturday morning.
check out the digester explosion at the paper mill in Panama city, Florida. i was sitting in the parking lot when it happened with my mom, dad had just walked through there, blew up behind him.
Glad to see a new upload today! Dealing with a death in the family right now so this is an absolutely welcome distraction. Thanks again for all do. You deserve every one of your OVER 1 MILLION SUBSXSUBSCRIBERS!!!
Sorry for your loss, hope you and your family are okay
@nerdygoth6905 I appreciate it, thank-you! Family is going as well as csn be expected, but getting there.
Grieving is hell. I’m sorry you’re going through this. When grief hits me, I tell myself that the pain of the loss is the price we pay for loving and being loved. It doesn’t really make it hurt less, but it frames the pain in a way that makes it have more of a purpose.
@@ChaosMagnet that is actually very well said and a perspective I hadn't heard nor considered before. Thank you for responding and for the words of wisdom. They are genuinely appreciated.
@@MMSMLUNWINPP you’re very welcome. Be gentle with yourself during this time. Get as much rest as you can, eat right wherever possible, and do something you consider fun that gets your body moving. It’s easy to get stuck inside our own head when going through grief, and we forget about the needs of our physical self when our mental and emotional self is so much in the forefront.
You’re stronger than you ever know. I hope that your week is going as well as is possible.
Civil engineer, here. Out of US. The 5 year sentence, though a max, seems too small for the structural engineer. I do hope he is also permanently banned from practicing engineering and construction.
Thank you and have a great day.
The ring of fire lmao.😆
Thank you!!
WOW using empty oil cans in the support columns and walls. They's a new one.
Congrats on 1 mil!
1 Mil. Congratulations 🎉
Cheers from rainy Minnesota.
"Shaky Ground Syndrome."
I almost feel guilty laughing about that one.
Nooo where do i get my industrial grade glysin now. Thats tragic
Wow--no, you actually did pretty well with those name pronunciations; that was a lot all at once, well-done! @11:00
no wonder the building colapsed. build on a soft footing, watered down concrete and Oil cans in the walls Jeeze! 😵💫
With those 'building materials', I'm amazed it stood through 2 quakes!
Next time on Plainly Difficult: John's plainly difficult attempt to find a room air conditioner in London as the heatwave surpasses 50⁰ C. 😮
Stay cool and hydrated!
I'm surprised there's not window-units for sale. The U.K. is having really hot summers now.
I don't think it is quite that hot there. In fact the hottest is is predicted to get is just half that hot.
1:10 I guess we all need to pitch in and subscribe so John can buy some updated world maps 😂🤣.
Love the OG Christopher Columbus-era graphics!
If you cut every corner
There is more time to play
More time to plaaaay ☂️
If you cut every corner does it become a circle?
Thanks PD John.