A Brief Report of Hotel Collapse Causing Casualties in Suzhou, China

The collapse of a 30-year-old hotel building in Suzhou, Jiangsu Province on 12 July 2021 raised legitimate questions about the identification of old buildings’ condition and risks stemming from remedial operations. This short communication reports and investigates the causes of this accident, which...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inSafety (Basel) Vol. 7; no. 4; p. 82
Main Authors Chen, Yu-Lin, Njock, Pierre Guy Atangana, Zhao, Lin-Shuang
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Basel MDPI AG 01.12.2021
Subjects
accident
building collapses
Building failures
building renovation
Buildings
Concrete
Earthquakes
Evacuations & rescues
Fatalities
Hotels & motels
Investigations
Load
Masonry
recommendations
rescue measures
Seismic engineering
China
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Summary:The collapse of a 30-year-old hotel building in Suzhou, Jiangsu Province on 12 July 2021 raised legitimate questions about the identification of old buildings’ condition and risks stemming from remedial operations. This short communication reports and investigates the causes of this accident, which led to 17 deaths and 5 injuries. Subsequently, it describes the rescue actions undertaken, including logistic means, operational strategies, and procedure sequencing. The causes of the accident were attributed to: (i) the poor quality and fragility of the building, (ii) illegal renovations and extensions, as well as (iii) the laxism of relevant departments that failed to timely check the risk level of the building before these renovations. Thanks to efficient organization and management, the rescue operations were completed within 42 h. Based on this preliminary analysis, some recommendations are proposed to prevent similar incidents in the future.
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ISSN:2313-576X
2313-576X
DOI:10.3390/safety7040082