That should be clear and convincing evidence of poor construction, and easy to find in the rubble. Kind of astounding that a contractor in this part of the world would not know about rebar and exactly how it lends support to a concrete structure. … unless somebody was sick or out the week they poured.
Nice metaphor!
My wife and kids left Hualien. They should be well out of the county by now. What a relief. I’ve been watching the earthquake frequency almost nonstop for the last two days. I begged them to come back on Wednesday and finally talked them into it this morning after a somewhat sleepless night (for my wife, anyway- my kids slept well). Again, what a freakin’ relief! I’ll be picking them up soon for some Korean barbecue. I plan to drink heavily and have my wife drive us home.
The plan is to head back (all of us) on Monday. Is that a bad idea?
Maybe not…they look a lot stronger.
I was thinking more of the area and hansioux’s background. Maybe freshly cooked bamboo shoots? I think I’m just giddy to have my wife and kids out of the current earthquake hot zone.
Yeah, well, actually I thought of what I wrote before when I read your post the other day commenting on those pillars, but forgot to reply you (actually I was afraid you would temp my post). However I suspect @hansioux is talking about something totally different, but my poor English doesn’t enable me to understand him 
Is it just me, or does that building look like it’s made out of Legos. Of course, Legos probably would have held up much better in an earthquake.
On the other hand, the bracing was a relatively recent addition, so why was it thought necessary to add it. Not sure of exact date of this photo, I think 2008
But the pillars would support mainly the “exta” part of the building (well, it helps to alleviate the others too). I guess they added them for something they noticed and didn’t want other people to notice though…
Is it possible though that if the protruding part suffered a failure, it could have led to a collapse?
I think rebar means steel frames inside the concrete.
I’m not an architect, and I don’t have structures engineering background either… but I would say no. But who knows. Have you heard of the chaos theory? there are many factors in every system, and to come up with a model that simulates reality is complex or even impossible because of the way these factors interact. Maybe the extra pressure over the old pillars that are closer to the facade has aged the building faster… dunno. Any architect or skilled engineer in the room?
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Google images points in that direction, but I’m not sure where they are located and I think I didn’t get @hansioux’s reasoning.
True, most major cities would have more damage, ie Christchurch (New Zealand) in which over 100 people died and till this day still rebuilding the CBD (Downtown/Central):
Nothing would surprise me.
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Wasn’t the Marshall the one that pancaked (dropped into the basement), while the others have tilted over?
Interesting bits
A key difficulty for the prosecution would be in proving the CTV building would not have collapsed in the absence of the identified design errors," he said.
Another obstacle was the length of time between the design and when the deaths occurred.
The Crimes Act requires death to have taken place within a year and a day after the defendants’ negligent conduct ceased . . .On the most natural interpretation of events the alleged negligence ceased when the design process was complete, in 1986. The year and a day rule is an historical anomaly and law reform is currently being considered."
Not to worry, after the initial outrage dies down it will be business as usual