HOW TO SPOT BAD CONSTRUCTION IN BUILDINGS Two building collapses have received a great deal of media coverage thus far in 2013: the building collapse in Thane, Mumbai and Savar, Bangladesh. Whereas 74 people lost their lives in the Thane building collapse, the death toll was more than 700 in the Savar building collapse. In the South Asian cities that are witnessing rapid urbanisation, building collapses are a common phenomenon, but these tragedies seem to mostly occur in small buildings belonging to low income and informal and semi-formal neighbourhoods. In fact, it is quite possible that the total toll caused by such collapses could be higher compared to the large-scale ones that happen occasionally. These collapses do not necessarily occur because the buildings are illegally constructed. Gaps in the system lead to poor quality of construction. Further, multi-floor structures are constructed by untrained workers without proper engineering knowledge. Often, generic reasons such as u...
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