Listing Bangkok apartment block likely to face wrecking ball.
A return to the drawing board appears to be the most likely course of action for the ill-fated Pathum Thani residential project as investigations continue into what caused the buildings to begin tilting. Construction work has already been halted and the labourers have gone home.
Don Muang Grand Plaza Co Ltd has so far invested 70 million baht to build two apartment blocks with 132 rooms in each, located behind Zeer Rangsit Mall in Lam Luk Ka. Zeer Rangsit Mall owns the property.
“There is an 80% chance that we will destroy the building and rebuild again,” the company said in a statement after a meeting with residents from the nearby Pummarin housing estate on Thursday.
“But we can’t confirm what we are going to do with the building at the moment. We are still looking into the problem and considering the best solution,” the statement said, adding they would announce their decision today.
Ku Kot municipality issued an evacuation order for the area on Monday, after police started receiving reports from local residents on Sunday that one of the towers was collapsing. Work was immediately suspended and labourers evacuated from the construction site.
Thanes Weerasiri – secretary-general of the Engineering Institute of Thailand and a lecturer at Thammasat University and an expert on building collapses – has dismissed reports that the building had collapsed due to ground instability caused by the 2011 floods or it being built on a drained pond. The building has a six degree lean on the northern side.
“No one can really tell what caused the building to tilt because no one can go into the area to conduct a detailed examination to determine the reason for collapse,” Thanes said. “The whole area is too sensitive and we don’t want to do anything to make it worse. After an initial inspections on Monday, Mr Thanes said he had three theories on what caused the collapse: the condition of the soil, the position of the foundation piles and the size of the foundation piles and their placement. Both buildings have the foundation piles 21m underground as required by law,” he said. “Therefore, the buildings should be able to stay up without collapsing.”
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