Team to study building crash

BY PMA RASHEED
The Gulf Today, 18 Aug 2009

A SPECIAL technical team of Dubai Municipality (DM) has been formed to study the reasons for the collapse of the eight-storey building on Sunday evening in Dubai.
Essa Al Maidour, the DM's Assistant Director General for Planning and Building Affairs, said that the DM will enforce the safety standards to be adopted at constructions sites in all stages. The civic body will further toughen its inspections at the construction sites, in the wake of the Sunday building collapse.
"All the consultancy and contracting companies operating in the emirate of Dubai will have to strictly abide by the application of the security requirements by the DM, and violators will be punished strictly," he added.
"The DM has imposed the best international safety standards and will check out on the construction sites and maintain records of its signatories," he stated.
Maidour said that the specialised technical team to inquire into the incident consists of the civic body officials from the planning and building affairs department. The committee is headed by Engineer Marwan Abdullah, engineering and supervision chief of the department.
He pointed out, "The collapsed building consisted of three basement floors, plus one ground floor and other four floors. The committee is currently reviewing the construction plans of the building to examine all possible reasons of the tragic accident."
"A number of technical aspects are included in the issue. The technical team will inspect in details all the possible reasons, including the safety aspects of soil quality measures and groundwater," he said.
Maidour said that the technical team is also working on the audit and details of the particular construction site. They will check out whether the company has conducted necessary lab tests required by the municipality.
No casualties or injuries were reported in the incident. The commercial building was under construction near Ramada Hotel and City Bay on Al Hail road in Deira.
Meanwhile, the building collapse damaged at least 12 cars and caused the loss of millions of dirhams.