Harbin building with damaged walls 'structurally safe'

Experts have said that a high-rise building in the Songbei district of Harbin, capital city of Heilongjiang province, which has had some loadbearing walls illegally demolished remains structurally sound and safe to use, the district government reported on Sunday.

According to a statement released on April 28 by the Limin Xueyuan residential community property management company, the demolition of load-bearing walls during the renovation of an apartment on the third floor resulted in walls cracking on the fourth and sixth floors.

Residents of over 200 apartments were relocated to nearby hotels.

The district police have detained five people — the two people who rented the apartment, two construction workers and a property company manager — on criminal charges of endangering public security.

The apartment's owner and the property company concerned will be fined, the government said.

Upon learning of the illegal alterations, the district government immediately invited national and provincial institutions to conduct technical appraisal work on the building's structural safety, and to monitor the resulting deformation of walls.

A nine-member group including academicians from the Chinese Academy of Engineering, national-level masters of engineering survey and design and compilers of national specifications were invited to carry out the safety appraisal and devise a plan for repair.

The National Construction Engineering Quality Inspection and Testing Center of the China Academy of Building Research finished testing all of the building's 248 apartments and announced that its 50 load-bearing walls amounted to an area of 42.98 square meters.

The construction team removed a part of one wall with an area of 0.48 square meters, which accounted for 1.12 percent of the load-bearing wall area on the third floor. Other walls removed were not load-bearing.

The test results showed that all the visible cracks are located in either cavity walls or in structural connections, but do not affect structural safety.

The Heilongjiang Provincial Academy of Cold Area Building Research carried out continuous 30-day monitoring and concluded that the data obtained at monitoring points is within national standards and displays no abnormalities.

The Engineering Testing Co of the Harbin Institute of Technology carried out a safety evaluation of the building, indicating that its overall structure will be able to meet the requirements for safe use after repair, with the exception of some structural components adjacent to areas that have been demolished.

The district government has dispatched 15 working groups to take care of services for residents and is entrusting top-notch regional construction companies with the restoration work.