TallGuyJohninBKK

Chadchart, prior to becoming a politician, was a civil/structural engineer by academic qualifications and trade. What happened at the State Audit building must make him literally sick to his stomach: "He completed a bachelor's degree in Civil Engineering (First Class Honors) from Chulalongkorn University and then received a Master's of Structural Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and a Doctorate of Engineering from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in the USA with Ananda Mahidol Foundation Scholarship in 1987." "Chadchart used to work as a structural engineer in a private company. Later in 1995, he joined the Faculty of Engineering, Chulalongkorn University as an associate professor and an assistant to the president. In addition, he has served as a director in many state enterprises such as The Transport Company Limited, Mass Rapid Transit Authority of Thailand and Aeronautical Radio of Thailand Limited..." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chadchart_Sittipunt All that said, the BMA's potential culpability in all this hasn't been established, one way or the other, AFAIK.

Crossy, maybe your memory and knowledge on this is better than mine... But I seem to recall, the SRT's ARL rail line some years back having operational problems because of substandard steel track elements having been used. And the SRT then having to curtail service for some periods of time while they replaced the original tracking??? "Though funding for this work was made available back in 2012 the tender has not been done as one of the problems with the line is that cheap chinese steel (a corruption issue) was used and there has been major problems with track deterioration especially at turn outs - which resulted in speed restrictions a year ago. The whole track will need to be replaced in the next few years." https://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowTopic-g293916-i3687-k7360486-Airport_Rail_Link_express_Phaya_Thai_line_maintenance_work-Bangkok.html https://www.bangkokpost.com/thailand/general/1181893/airport-link-boss-hits-back-over-safety Not an inspiring track record of rail transit when the Thai government is the operator: Airport Rail Link a model of failure THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 2014 "...from the time the Thaksin administration signed the first contracts in 2005 to its official opening in 2014, no one seems to have had any sensible plans for this infrastructure project. Surprisingly, maintenance and safety requirements were not a priority of the existing plan, which also fails to encompass the financial losses. Everyone behind the project should be held accountable for these failures. They must have known about the running limit of the trains, and that the delivery of spare parts from its maker, Siemens, takes seven or eight months. Such simple facts should not escape capable managers. But, instead, the ARL board’s mishandling of the situation threatens to cause not only safety concerns but also severe inconvenience." https://www.nationthailand.com/perspective/30243536

One thing I haven't seen clarified in all this -- is just WHAT level of government had building inspection / code compliance responsibilities for the State Audit building project. Normally, for commercial projects, it would be the building staff from the BMA, which is under Chadchart's domain. But in this case, the Audit building project was commissioned by and funded by the national government, which may mean that they, instead of the BMA, had jurisdiction over code compliance. The lack of clarity about that makes it hard to know where to point the finger. :Perhaps it's in their interest to leave the details of such things vague and un-addressed.

Meanwhile, AFAICT, the government has already ceased their prior nightly televised EQ updates. They had been nightly at 7 p.m. But in looking tonight, I didn't find a version for today in any of the usual places. However, I did catch this in one of Thai PBS's broadcasts tonight -- a recap tally bulletin board from the collapsed State Audit Building site, translated from Thai with Google Translate: (obviously, the "2015" year reference by Google is a translation mistake that should be "2025". As of 3 pm this afternoon: 96 victims, consisting of: --15 fatalities --9 injured (and rescued) --72 still unaccounted for I'm wondering how long it's going to be, (if and/or when) the authorities start adding the still unaccounted for numbers into the deaths tally? Or maybe the government will decide to leave those just permanently unaccounted for?

AFAICT, this week, the Thai government and leadership seem to be in one GREAT HURRY of a rush to put the whole EQ thing behind them, out of sight and out of mind. And that includes the collapsed State Audit office building. If you look over the past two days, they're unusually busy talking about how international tourism and events can continue uninterrupted and talking about the upcoming Songkran holidays.

No, they were not employees of IT, at least not directly. They apparently were employees of one of the Chinese companies involved in the project. I don't believe any of the news reports have named which one exactly. But presumably they were from the JV partner China Railway....

Let go by Thai police pending further/future proceedings (ya right....) on the legal case that was filed against them.

FWIW, in reading other materials already posted elsewhere here, it sounds like the design used by the Chinese company developer for the State Audit building was an "unconventional" one, to say the least. It sounds like the builder was trying to show some kind of proof of concept construction method that obviously failed spectacularly. Via Google Translate: Thailand's new audit office building main structure successfully capped China Railway Ten Bureau Group 2024-04-03 "The main building of the new audit office building is 137 meters high, and the structure is in the form of "core cylinder + beamless floor". The core cylinder adopts the slide mold construction technology, the beamless floor plate adopts the lifting mold installation process, and the outer frame adopts the climbing construction process. In order to ensure the quality of super-high-level concrete, a project technical research group was established at the beginning of the start to study key technologies. Slip mode construction technology The slider construction technology uses the slider device to slide the 1.2-meter-high tool-type template along the concrete surface, controlling the thickness of each layer of concrete not exceeding 25 cm, and achieving an effective slide of the template. In the process of sliding, the measurement correction is done, and the horizontal deviation of the slide mode working platform is controlled within 1 cm. After the concrete pouring is completed, a professional care agent is used for smear and maintenance. This technology realizes the scientific control of the work of template slippage, system installation, and concrete pouring in the construction of the slider. ... Climbing construction process The outer frame adopts fully automatic attached lifting scaffolding for overall improvement, with fast construction speed, high safety performance and a large amount of turnover materials. https://archive.ph/0NVlV

So the steel subcontractor here was another defacto Chinese company operating in Thailand (Rayong), and supplying the other Chinese company that was the defacto main builder of the collapsed high-rise: "Sin Ker Yuan's directors, Jianqi Chen, Su Longchen, and Sompan Pankaeo, were set to be charged for violations related to producing products that do not meet standards"

The news reports said the Thai police confiscated the documents, but let the 4 or 5 Chinese walk out after being interviewed, pending potential further legal proceedings on the charges that were filed against them. Call me skeptical, but I'd wager the legal case against them will never meaningfully be pursued. China wouldn't like it. "Chinese ambassador to Bangkok Han Zhiqiang brought a Chinese expert in tunnel collapse and earthquakes from the Chinese Ministry of Emergency Management to meet Mr Anutin on Sunday. After the meeting, the interior minister said the Chinese expert observed the collapse site." https://www.bangkokpost.com/thailand/general/2991159/7-day-deadline-for-probe-into-chinese-built-high-rise-collapse

Given the anti-vaxer nutball who's been tasked with performing the study, you're probably right. But also given that, pretty much the entire credible scientific and public health communities will likely end up ignoring the potential anti-vax nonsense that will be forthcoming, recognizing it for what it is (may end up being). Who Is David Geier, the Man Leading Federal Autism-Vaccine Study? — Discredited researcher, vaccine skeptic was disciplined for practicing medicine without a license March 27, 2025 "David Geier, a man without a medical degree who once was disciplined by the Maryland State Board of Physicians for practicing medicine without a license, reportedly will lead a new HHS study to identify whether a relationship between vaccines and autism exists. ... David Geier and his father Mark Geier, MD, are known for several discredited studies claiming that thimerosal, a preservative containing low levels of ethylmercury used in some vaccines, increased the risk of autism. (Thimerosal has been reduced or eliminated from vaccines for decades, and all vaccines recommended for children 6 and younger are available in formulations that do not contain thimerosal.) ... One study used data from the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System. The American Academy of Pediatrics warned clinicians about the study, saying it contained "numerous conceptual and scientific flaws, omissions of fact, inaccuracies, and misstatements," and failed to show a connection between thimerosal and autism. (more) https://archive.ph/4etjy

Ohh really? Hegseth’s ‘DEI is dead’ purge targets images of Tuskegee Airmen, war heroes — and WWII B-29 Enola Gay A review of the database of images the Pentagon is targeting for removal underscores the confusion about what to remove. Some photos seemed to be flagged simply because their file included the word “gay,” including an image of the plane that dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, during World War II. Mar 8, 2025 WASHINGTON — References to a World War II Medal of Honor recipient, the Enola Gay aircraft that dropped an atomic bomb on Japan and the first women to pass Marine infantry training are among the tens of thousands of photos and online posts marked for deletion as the Defense Department works to purge diversity, equity and inclusion content, according to a database obtained by The Associated Press. The database, which was confirmed by U.S. officials and published by AP, includes more than 26,000 images that have been flagged for removal across every military branch. But the eventual total could be much higher. ... In some cases, the removal was partial. The main page in a post titled “Women’s History Month: All-female crew supports warfighters” was removed. But at least one of the photos in that collection about an all-female C-17 crew could still be accessed. A shot from the Army Corps of Engineers titled “Engineering pioneer remembered during Black History Month” was deleted. (more) https://chicago.suntimes.com/politics/donald-trump/2025/03/07/war-heroes-military-imagespentagons-dei-purge-enola-gay-donald-trump Truly, the idiotic inmates are in charge of the asylum. "The Air Force briefly removed new recruit training courses that included videos of the Tuskegee Airmen soon after Trump’s order. That drew the White House’s ire [after the removal received widespread news coverage] over “malicious compliance,” and the Air Force quickly reversed the removal.

Be great if you could actually get the title correct of the book you're referring to. But I understand such things can be a challenge for some. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rise_and_Fall_of_the_Third_Reich

Perhaps you might want to reconsider your choice of wording there... We've already had an EQ that caused a highrise building to collapse killing (thus far officially) a dozen inside with many dozens more still unaccounted for. The last thing Thailand needs right now is a typhoon!!!

One example: the wife and I were long overdue for a weekend getaway. We wanted to go to Hua Hin as is our custom, but absolutely did not want to be driving on Rama II in the wake of the recent construction mishaps and resulting fatalities there... So, we didn't go to Hua Hin as planned. PS - FWIW, we also explored taking the Rama II expressway-free SRT train service to Hua Hin, but couldn't get available air con seats for the going and returning trip dates we needed. So that was a fail also.

No doubt one of your heroes...sadly: "Andrew Jeremy Wakefield (born 3 September 1956[3][4][a]) is a British fraudster, anti-vaccine activist, and disgraced former physician. He was struck off the medical register for "serious professional misconduct"[7] due to his involvement in the fraudulent 1998 Lancet MMR autism study that falsely claimed a link between the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine and autism." The publicity surrounding the study caused a sharp decline in vaccination uptake, leading to a number of outbreaks of measles around the world and many deaths therefrom. ... The Lancet fully retracted Wakefield's 1998 publication on the basis of the GMC's findings, noting that elements of the manuscript had been falsified and that the journal had been "deceived" by Wakefield.[19][20] Three months later, Wakefield was struck off the UK medical register, in part for his deliberate falsification of research published in The Lancet.[7][21] In a related legal decision, a British court held that "[t]here is now no respectable body of opinion which supports [Wakefield's] hypothesis, that MMR vaccine and autism/enterocolitis are causally linked". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Wakefield

Here's the Monday night government update (abbreviated EN version) on EQ recovery related matters: https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1XkRyuEdLg/ Here's the longer Thai language version with the same EN version following at the end: In terms of details, things that were said, and weren't said in the EN update: Collapsed State Audit Building: What was said: as the critical 72-hours after mark passed for the building's collapse, the official death toll there rose by 1 more body, reaching a total of 12 thus far at the site. What wasn't said: no update in the EN briefing on the number of still unaccounted for persons/bodies at the site, which had been reported the day before as 76. Does that mean they recovered no additional bodies and made no living rescues in the past 24 hours period? Transportation: The government spokeswoman said the Pink Line overhead rail line finally reopened for service, and fallen crane debris was removed from a portion of the Din Daeng Expressway, meaning that area reopened to traffic. Building Inspections: The government spokeswoman said thus far, only TWO of some 350 building in BMA territory that had been inspected for EQ damage had been declared temporarily uninhabitable. In terms of inspections, she said the government had received more than 14,000 individual requests for EQ related building inspections, up about 2,000 from the prior day. As of Monday evening, she said only about 2,400 of those had not been "addressed." She also clarified that the requests for inspections counts don't equate to numbers of buildings. What she meant was, for example, you might have requests from 100 different residents of ONE condo building, and each of those would count as a separate request, even though they all related to the same building. The BMA also said they have launched a publicly available online platform for tracking inspections progress, as follows:

The BMA seems to be relying on some vaguely defined corps of volunteer "inspectors" to do their building structural surveying checks. I haven't seen any explanation or clarification of just what kind of qualifications, if any, they're requiring of those who are making those inspections and judgments about buildings. In the latest BMA public briefing provided tonight, the Thai government rep in English reported that only TWO residential buildings in BMA jurisdiction out of some 350 inspected thus far had been declared temporarily uninhabitable. ---------------------------- PS - I got a laugh out of your comment above, because in my neighborhood of BKK, the condo building handymen who do various repair and maintenance work often seem to be referred to as "engineers"! I certainly hope they're not the ones doing the structural building inspections, nor the BMA staff who do all kinds of other, unrelated "inspection" duties. Separately, the national government seems to be pushing extraordinarily hard right now to persuade everyone that everything is OK and nothing's really wrong in BKK... They've even launched a PR campaign for it, as follows: https://www.facebook.com/share/v/16JLfMV2JM/

Then you can ignore this too... which comes as no surprise: Cleveland Clinic study didn’t find that taking more COVID-19 vaccine doses causes increased COVID-19 risk; association alone doesn’t imply causation "Association alone doesn’t indicate causation Health Feedback reached out to the lead author of the study, infectious disease physician Nabin Shrestha, who clarified in an email that “association is not causation”, and that “Any claim that our study shows a causal relationship between getting more doses of the COVID-19 vaccine and higher risk of infection is false”. [emphasis added] https://healthfeedback.org/claimreview/cleveland-clinic-study-didnt-find-more-covid-19-vaccine-doses-causes-increased-covid-19-risk-association-alone-doesnt-imply-causation/

As usual, COVID misinformation spreaders here doing what they do... spreading misinformation that has long been debunked elsewhere... But of course they ignore all that. Cleveland Clinic Study Did Not Show Vaccines Increase COVID-19 Risk Posted on June 16, 2023 "SciCheck Digest Numerous studies have found that additional COVID-19 shots are generally associated with extra protection against the coronavirus. Many people on social media, however, have shared a preliminary finding from a Cleveland Clinic study and misrepresented it as proving that getting more doses increases a person’s risk of infection. Full Story COVID-19 vaccines and boosters reduce the risk of severe disease and death. They also offer some protection against infections, although the effectiveness wanes in the months after getting vaccinated, and such effectiveness is lower against the omicron variant, compared with earlier variants of the coronavirus. ... The researchers also noticed that people who got more vaccine doses prior to Sept. 12, 2022 — the day the bivalent booster became available at the Cleveland Clinic — had a higher rate of testing positive in the following months than people who had gotten fewer prior vaccine doses. But the researchers didn’t find that more doses caused a higher risk of infection. Rather, this finding was an association that could be due to multiple other factors. And studies have generally found that each additional vaccine dose reduces COVID-19 risk." [emphasis added] https://www.factcheck.org/2023/06/scicheck-cleveland-clinic-study-did-not-show-vaccines-increase-covid-19-risk/ There's a much longer elaboration in the linked Fact Check report (which forum rules prevent me from quoting any more than the excerpts above) explaining why claims such as those made by the poster here are not factually supported, included not factually supported by the Cleveland Clinic study.

Yep, that's pretty much the story here... Or to put in another way, what's called GIGO -- garbage in (RFK Jr.) and garbage out (fellow anti-vaccine crackpot David Geier). The Trump Admin and its anti-public health crusade is just getting started. Stand by for much much much more of the same nonsense. It's going to be a very LONG four years coming.

Ya, that's certainly what it looked like, in terms of the manner in which they were removing stuff... Hmm...maybe not!!!

They were busy trying to scrub the construction site of relevant project documents.... until they got caught and arrested for doing so....

It seems, they (the Chinese involved) were very proud of their work.... before it collapsed in spectacular and deadly fashion: https://www.facebook.com/glange3/posts/pfbid02qeDSXcYMVDh9DVAoaYaJByhNv23RrxMWNkNZ1QjaubUMRUJT71Q1K69gWrAxp2tal "Ironically, promotional posts about Thailand's new Audit Office building are still visible online, celebrating its completion of structural work and final concrete pour. Built by the China Railway Tenth Bureau Urban Construction Company, it was hailed as Thailand’s first international-class high-rise. Now, after Friday’s earthquake, there's painful irony in those words." Link: https://news.goalfore.cn/topstories/detail/63177.html Google Translation of the Chinese text: The main structure of the new Audit Bureau office building in Thailand has been successfully capped China Railway 10th Bureau Group 2024-04-03 10:59:03 "With the last concrete poured successfully The project was built by China Railway 10th Bureau Urban Construction Company. The world's first overseas super high-rise building Thailand's new Audit Bureau office building The main structure was successfully capped Fully entered the decoration and renovation construction stage." ... After completion, it will mainly serve the National Audit Bureau of Thailand and other relevant government functional departments, and will be a business card for China Railway 10th Bureau's development in Thailand. [emphasis added] "The main building of the new Audit Bureau office building is 137 meters high, with a structural form of "core tube + beamless floor". The core tube adopts the slipform construction technology, the beamless floor adopts the lifting form installation process, and the external frame adopts the climbing frame construction process. ... Daily inspections are strengthened to urge the project to strengthen safety and quality standardization management, strictly implement local, national and industry regulations, and ensure that safety and quality control measures are in place." Short version of the above - the building was structurally COMPLETE when it collapsed. The remaining finishing and fitting work to be done had nothing to do with the structural integrity of the building. And that's a scary but important thing to understand.

AFAIK, IT also is a main contractor on the Rama II Road project, which has been plagued by a long series of problems, including collapses of parts of their elevated roadway structures there. Great team together! Five killed, 22 injured in beam collapse on Rama II Road 15 Mar 2025 At least five people were killed and 22 others injured when a concrete beam of an under-construction expressway bridge near Rama II Road in Chom Thong district of Bangkok fell early on Saturday. ... Local media quoted Exat governor Surachet Laophulsuk as saying the agency would pursue legal action against the ITD-VCB joint venture, which was awarded the third contract for the Rama III-Dao Khanong-Western Outer Ring Road expressway project. The joint venture consists of Italian-Thai Development Plc and Vijitphan Construction. ... Previous construction accidents on Rama II Road have resulted in fatalities. One of the accidents took place on Nov 29 last year when a sling broke, resulting in six deaths and eight injuries. Another accident took place on Jan 18 last year when a sling snapped, killing a worker and causing the crane’s lifting basket to fall. In May 2023, a worker was killed by a falling concrete slab. https://www.bangkokpost.com/thailand/general/2980458/five-killed-22-injured-in-beam-collapse-on-rama-ii-road But hey, the gravy train just keeps on rolling!