News
Tilted apartment building leads to urgent evacuation
  • | laodong, dtinews.vn | January 24, 2019 01:51 PM
Dozens of households in HCM City's District 1 had to evacuate at night as the apartment building began to tilt and subside on January 23.


 

Vo Van Kiet Apartment Block

Vo Van Kiet Apartment Block was completed in 1999. There are 38 households with 120 people living in the building. However, an inspection by the Department of Construction showed that the building had tilted by 45cm and could collapse at any time.

District 1 People's Committee held an emergency meeting in order to evacuate all households from the building on January 23 or in the morning of January 24 at the latest.

The residents and the building management board have filed complaints multiple times about the tilting before. According to the residents, the evacuation notice was sudden but they all agreed with the solution.

Doan Ngoc Hai, chairman of District 1, said households would be relocated to other apartments in District 1, 4, Binh Thanh and Binh Chanh districts and the building would not be used for any other purpose.

It may take six months to deal with the tilting and subsidence. However, this is not a long-term solution as the building is built on the city's old canal system and the foundations are only two metres deep. The other solution is to rebuild the apartment block completely which may take 18 months.

When being asked why the inspection which started in September took so long, the Department of Construction said they had to follow procedures.

On January 24, the local authorities continued helping the residents with moving tasks. Hai said the adjacent Chuong Duong Primary School should be blocked and warning signs would be put up.

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