First listen to June 25th 2012 to hear about the Royal Commission and follow the other links on that page.
The Royal Commission into the Canterbury Earthquakes has just finished eight weeks investigating the collapse of the CTV building. Yesterday was the final day. During these eight weeks, the Commission tried to find out why the CTV building collapsed, killing 115 people.
It seems many mistakes were made. The lawyer for the families who died said the engineer who designed the building was inexperienced. He was a new graduate. His boss in the engineering company did not check the work. The City Council engineers at that time said the design was OK and gave building consent. Five years later, there were some problems in the building but nothing was done to fix these problems. After the first earthquakes in 2010, tenants in the building said that it did not feel safe; it shook when trucks went past, but again nothing was done.
However, the lawyer for the engineering company said that their design was good because the building did not collapse during the 7.1 earthquake in September 2010.
We now have to wait until November 12th for the final report from the Commission.
Vocabulary
investigate – examine, inquire into a problem
building consent – piece of paper which says the building design is OK
tenants – people who pay rent
I think not only few buildings have same problem in NZ. I was living in an apartment in Auckland.When trucks were passing that road at nights I could feel strongly that floor was shaking.
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