Deira building crash

http://www.gulfnews.com/nation/General/10340812.html

Most of the time, buildings fall down after they're completed, not during. This is not the first time this has happened in Dubai. The Atlantis Palm Hotel, christened last December by the likes of Robert DeNiro and so forth, supposedly already has water leakage.

This reminds me of the Delhi metro station incidents. Interestingly enough, the labor that builds the empires in Dubai, Doha, and other Gulf cities comes from the same corner of the world. Dare I say I detect a pattern here?

******************

One arrested in Deira building crash

By Wafa Issa, Staff Reporter
Last updated: August 16, 2009, 18:27

Dubai: One person has been taken into custody after part of a six-storey building collapsed in Deira on Sunday, officials said.

No one was injured in the incident, Yousuf Foulath, Chief Prosecutor, Deira Public Prosecution, told Gulf News. This was confirmed by Khalil Al Mansouri, Head of the Criminal Investigation Department, Dubai Police.

Click here to see more pictures

The building near the Ramada Continental Hotel in Abu Hail was in its final stages of completion, Foulath said there were 23 workers and an engineer in the building when they heard strange noises from the three-storey basement. The men grew suspicious and ran out of the building.

They informed the police, who reached the site immediately. "After about 35 minutes a few chunks from the building started crumbling," Foulath said.

Watch video: Six-storey building collapses in Deira
The Public Prosecution has started investigations into the collapse.

The incident occurred around 3.30pm when half the portion of the building gave way. "It was around 3.30pm when I saw the building collapse. I've never seen anything like this. There was glass everywhere. It seemed like half the building just fell to the floor," recounted Shahid Bashir Ahmad, a Gulf News reader.

"I don't know how it happened - it happened really fast. I was standing at a traffic signal nearby and within a few minutes, police cars and ambulance vehicles sped to the location," he added.

Construction workers were present, working at the nearby bridge. No one could believe it.

"I was walking near the Ramada Hotel when I saw the building collapse. It was a glass building and half of it was on the ground within minutes. Shattered glass was everywhere. Some of the debris fell on other buildings nearby too. It was so out of the blue! At least 15 police vehicles came to the area and stopped traffic from all directions. People got out of their homes and cars and were clicking pictures," said Waqas, another reader.

Traffic came to a standstill for a few hours as police put up roadblocks as a safety precaution. Gulf News counted at least seven vehicles parked near the building damaged, but no official statistics were available.

One of the contractors has been arrested, according to Brigadier Anas Al Matroushi, Deputy Head of Operations for Rescue and Transportation Affairs at Dubai Police.

Eisa Al Maidour, Assistant Director General at the Planning and Engineering Department at Dubai Municipality, told Gulf News that a technical committee has been formed to investigate the cause of the collapse.

"Preliminary findings have revealed that there was a fault in the structure, which put extra pressure on one half of the building. The structure was made of steel and hence it took a long time to collapse. This gave workers time to leave the site safely," he said.

Sniffer dogs were deployed to ensure no one was trapped in the debris.