Not all of ancient Rome’s structures stood the test of time. A few modern structures haven’t either. These are the deadliest failures of buildings, bridges,…
This article was originally published by TheStreet
Not all of ancient Rome’s structures stood the test of time. A few modern structures haven’t either. These are the deadliest failures of buildings, bridges, dams and other structures.
Earlier this year, part of a wooden stand of spectators collapsed during a bullfight in Colombia, killing at least four people and injuring hundreds more.
In 2017, in Oroville, Calif., nearly 180,000 people were evacuated downstream from Oroville Dam–the country’s tallest dam and one of the largest earth-fill dams in the world–when the dam’s spillway failed from heavy rains, threatening to release a 30-foot wall of water into the valley below.
Historically, many structural failures can be blamed on lack of building codes. But six of the 30 deadly disasters on this list, which include the failure of dams, bridges and buildings, occurred in the 2000s, including the attacks on Sept. 11.
In tragedies like the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah building in Oklahoma City, or the World Trade Center attacks, the cause of structural collapse might be considered to be outside the scope of engineers’ worst-case scenarios. The twin towers were built to absorb high wind loads, withstand fire long enough to evacuate the building, and even an errant aircraft that might accidentally hit one of the towers–but not to the extent of what did occur.
For structural engineers, events like Sept. 11 and the collapse of the bombed federal building in Oklahoma City are tragic, but also opportunities to learn and improve structural integrity, writes Shih-Ho Chao, an associate professor of structural engineering and applied mechanics at the University of Texas in Arlington. Engineers have since identified major ways to reduce the likelihood and severity of collapse by strengthening construction materials and improving structural design to better resist explosions, Chao writes.
This list of the worst structural failures of all time comes from researchers at ForneyVault, a machine integrated, cloud-based platform that provides construction material testing software solutions to eliminate the error-prone manual processes in construction that can lead to the deadly failure of buildings, dams or bridges. In some of these structural failures, building owners, engineers, inspectors, or even the local government were found to have cut corners during construction or inspections, which led to these catastrophic consequences, ForneyVault says.
These are the 30 deadliest structural failures of all time.
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