NZ Quake Collapse Building Design 'Deficient'

Sometimes the most significant thing in a news article is what is missing from the article. The article points out that the overseer of the engineer did not oversee and that the experience of the engineer did not include working in a zone prone to earthquakes. (Another overseer oversight.) The article mentions nothing about any possible repercussion for the overseer. They do not even mention the oversight firm nor governmental bureaucratic title responsible to inform the design engineer if the design met local codes.

The overseer(s) in question sound like he/she/they were hire primarily (political) preferability, rather than their technical competence. Thus, they might not be the only ones who were negligent...

The main problem may be that the earthquake didn't wait 50 more years to hit...

Then, the (overseer(s)) would have passed away, and the politicians could blame said person(s) all they wanted to, just like with the I-95 bridge collapse in Minnesota, USA. There, the engineers were blamed instead of the (unidentified adminstrator(s)) that allowed the bridge to become, and remain, a storage area for construction materials, for months and months, without being held accountable...

The bridge did exceed it's 50 year design life (just barely) in spite of such administrative abuses...

An engineer designing to code cannot, I believe, be sued if the building falls down. That's incompetence and could only result in termination. An engineer refusing to refer to the relevent code would be considered negligent and WOULD be open to a lawsuit.

In the UK, a civil defence would be two-fold:

1. It is designed to code (British Standards, the Building Regulations, whatever)
2. The design was approved by the Local Authority's Planning Office and inspected by them at appropriate intervals as work progressed with no improvement or prohibition notices being issued.

i wonder how they sleep at night.

Ignorance is bliss > have a blissful night's sleep.

I have to disagree with this. The codes cover measurable strengths and weaknesses, they don't cover stupid. The calculated loads and strengths are developed from estimated behavior and assumed load paths which cannot be derived from any code. If the assumptions are correct the design should be good, but is the assumptions are wrong, the design could, while complying with the code, lead to disaster.

i agree to a point. saving money seems to be a big issue. money seems to over ride the costs involved with safety . i would like to see the engineering team have a say in critizing the design without the fear of being replaced by a "yes man"

The Great California Earthquake was a huge and expensive learning event there. Repeated quakes on the west coast enhanced understanding and codes in steps and fits. A few years apprenticeship would have be useful for all involved from New Zealand. Too cheap, letting have them the education, but convenient to blame them? That is no solution.

What is significant is that New Zealand is situated on the Pacific Ring of Fire and basically has the Pacific plate pushing against the Australian plate. The islands probably have more extinct and no-so-extinct and just plain active volcanoes per square mile than any other place on earth. Supposedly New Zealand has some very stringent building codes that take into account the earthquake activity found there. How a lackadaisical approach by the construction manager or any designer/engineer/architect doesn't border on a criminal action seems strange.

Stories run recently on Australian television suggest that the 'engineer-in-charge' wasn't qualified. He is alleged to have stolen another engineers details etc., and used that person's civil engineering qualifications to gain employment which included supervising construction of the now collapsed [10 storey] building in Christchurch NZ.

I'm assuming that the charges against him will involve more than just plain "identity theft". That's pretty much going to involve manslaughter charges along with false swearing on official documentation and a host of other charges besides.