Part of Shopping Mall in Bangkok Collapses

BANGKOK: -- Part of a shopping mall under demolition collapsed Wednesday in the Thai capital, injuring at least seven people, two of them seriously, police and rescue workers said.

Several others were believed trapped inside the rubble at the 11-story New World Department Store in downtown Bangkok, said Boonyakirt Vichianrak, the head of a rescue team.

He said demolition workers had hollowed out the mall from the fifth to the top floor, but the lower floors were still occupied by tenants, including beauty salons and shops selling clothes and curios.

The building in Bangkok's Banglampoo area was apparently involved in a legal dispute with city authorities for having added extra floors without permission, Police Lt. Col. Vicharn Borirakkul said. It is not clear how many floors were added.

Some of the old buildings in Bangkok are notorious for shoddy construction and illegal additions that have often led to accidents. But stricter building codes have been enforced in recent years, especially among the dozens of skyscrapers forming the Bangkok skyline.

--AP 2004-06-02

Hmmm, aren't there always a landlord involved somehow who wasn't properly paid and felt pissed-off and acted upon that? Remember the Sukhumvit demolition? A few people still inside only works wonders towards showing non-compliants that it's better to pay up and shut up...

/// DFW

This has nothing whatever to do with the Sukhumvit activity of a few months ago. As the report says the upper stories of this building were being demolished. Floor 8 was being torn up and cement parts placed in another section of that floor until it became too much for floor to support and that portion fell to floor one. It happened at 10:30 AM so most people in the occupied floors had not arrived or the results could have been much worse.

Let's put it this way then:

A landlord involved - not willing to evacuate the entire building (rent loss!) while doing demolition work. People hurt (fatal losses?)

The Sukhumvit thing (yeah, that was just me speculating) had of course nothing to do with this, albeit property ownership can sometimes throw strange factors into the equation (dispute with the city etc...) as some thais can be combatant when faced with adversary opionions...

/// DFW

The way I have is that the building was originally constructed as a 4-story building. After it was built, a fictitious engineer/architect (or whatever) approved plans for the addition of 7 more floors. Not long after the completion of this addition, an inspection was carried out and they discovered that it was rife with stress fractures that not even a Thai civil servant could ignore and the building was condemned and has been for the last 10-15 years. However, even with the required signage posted by the city, the owner (a prominent Khunying that probably owns the whole darned block) has continually circumvented the law and rented space out to businesses, allowed the public to come in and out for services, and endangered passerbys in general. Now it's an even greater threat as it has become more unstable than ever.

This is the way business is done here and it's a shame that someone has to die before they MIGHT do something about it. Don't want to question authority or someone older and richer than you.