The Székelyudvarhely tragedy could have been avoided if they had not approached the works like professional barbarians.
A professional engineer from Hargita County tried to shed light on what could have led to the building collapse in Székelyudvarhely on Monday, as a result of which a 17-year-old student lost his life.
"The real problem is that the people involved, including the residents of Székelyudvarhely and Udvarhelyszék, received quite a lot of wrong information in the past few days, because a lot of misinformation "came out". But the very fact that this building collapse claimed human life revives a sense of justice in the person, that in the media they are not, or they are not speaking as they should. I am thinking, among other things, of the statement of Education Minister Ligia Deca regarding seismic problems," said the expert when contacted by Székelyhon.
The professional engineer pointed out: it is pointless to talk about the earthquake safety assessment of the collapsed part of the dormitory building.
"If I were the Minister of Education, I'd rather ask, was there an earthquake here on Monday?" Because if there was, only then is it relevant to relate the building collapse to the earthquake. I claim that if there had been an earthquake, the building would not have collapsed. These buildings were very well put together," he pointed out, adding: there are tens of thousands of facilities built using a method similar to that of the college, and perhaps one or two percent of them have a seismic classification. They could be classified as such because they were not built properly, they did not even meet the standards of 100-200 years ago. So this earthquake thing should be let go, because that's not what it's about.
"Time will prove or disprove what I claim, but I say based on twenty years of professional experience that what they did there is literally barbaric work. "When I visited the building on Tuesday, it was completely obvious to me that unauthorized work was carried out: therefore, the kind of construction that took place there is illegal," stated the specialist, pointing out that the work that took place there was at least a week's worth of earthwork - a copper brick had already been carried to the gymnasium. .
"When I saw that, I immediately thought that they could have caused a problem even for the Tamási Áron High School. Not to mention the work done in addition to the boarding house: it was as if we had put bakers there to consolidate and consolidate a building," he added, emphasizing that it was clear that there was no expertise.
According to the expert, based on the communication, those involved are trying to wrap everything in "public art" because they had permission to do so. What they did is actually completely independent of utility construction, it is a building rehabilitation - but in an unprofessional way.
"This became apparent to me when a three-meter trench was dug at a sixty-meter-long facility built on a stone foundation. You should know that a hundred years ago, the foundation technology was to put the stones together with lime or clay. That's why I was surprised that such a deep ditch was dug next to such a foundation without reason," the expert drew attention to another irregularity, emphasizing again: for this type of building, a contractor with professional experience should be chosen.
"On the other hand, I read in the media that the company had a well-trained team. This is completely unimportant, because they may all be bakers based on their education (all my respect to the bakers), but we also need good professionals in addition to familiarity. If there had been a moderately good professional in the team, this tragedy and collapse could have been avoided. The workers may be good at building utilities, but they are rubbish at rehabilitation. And speaking of utility construction: In Romania, there is a requirement that ramparts are mandatory from 1.10 meters (in the worst case, from 1.5 meters): the entire rampart must be built with metal ramparts, not wood, so that the earth does not fall on the worker. A tragedy could have occurred here, where the worker was pushed by the ground, because this regulation was not taken into account either. What's more, no rainwater was diverted, no matter what anyone says," he added.
The workers tried to drain the foundation of the building (even though they did not have permission to do so), so they had to dig down to the foundation of the building so that the drain would collect the water flowing in from the side.
Yes, but according to the expert's knowledge, there is no basement under the torn part, so the foundation there is higher than in the other parts, which is why they could go up to one and a half meters under the foundation on the collapsed section. The foundation is there, he could literally push the ground out from under him. The building collapsed exactly where it happened because there were the greatest pressures. Even when they were working, the stones were said to be constantly falling out of the foundation. That should have been an alarm bell, someone should have said "guys, something is wrong here".
"I am sure that the first cracks did not appear on Monday, the day of the tragedy. I don't blame anyone, but the director and the caretaker should have paid more attention and signaled that the direction is not good" -
stated the specialist, who says that there is no need to touch anything on the ground water either, these are also myths. If the ground water had washed away the foundation, then that three-meter-deep ditch would have had to be full of water. In contrast, there was no groundwater in the construction area.
"One word like a hundred: whatever they did, they didn't do it professionally, they did it all as public utility construction, because that's all they had a permit for - but in the meantime, they started draining the wall. And the city administration should have been clear from the first minute. And not to save anyone's skin, but to inform people in a correct way," said Székelyhon's interlocutor.
"Such a building doesn't collapse in minutes, it's a long process of several days. The building is not to blame, that building was literally executed. And what's sad is that I'm sure that people didn't work there by remote control, but at least the manager was there from time to time. But besides him, there are also other people responsible, for example the technical manager responsible for construction (responsable technic), and last but not least the manager of the construction site (diriginte de șantier), who should have stopped the work at the first hoe cutting. The sad thing about it all is that several professionals were able to contribute to the way things turned out".
Cover image: The collapsed part of the dormitory of the Tamási Áron High School in Székelyudvarhely on December 19, 2023.
A 17-year-old student lost his life in the fall of the wall that happened the day before. Three students were rescued from the ruins, one was seriously injured and two were slightly injured. Source: MTI/Nándor Veres
