BEIJING – Engineers are inspecting a skyscraper in southern China today, a day after the building triggered widespread panic when it suddenly began shaking, as people took to social media to ask if shoddy construction may have been to blame.
The 300m-high SEG Plaza in the southern city of Shenzhen near Hong Kong began swaying in the early afternoon of yesterday, prompting people inside and those on the streets below to flee.
Emergency management officials quickly ruled out an earthquake as the cause of the wobble in the tech hub’s Futian district.
Officials said no further movement has been detected, and experts have found “no safety abnormality in the main structure and surrounding environment of the building”.
The building had stopped shaking by the time people were evacuated, state media reported, and the plaza remains sealed off.
Building collapses are not rare in China, where lax construction standards and breakneck urbanisation over recent decades have led to buildings being thrown up in haste.
Poor construction standards are often linked to corruption among local officials, most recently after the collapse of a quarantine hotel in southern China last year.
Social media immediately lit up after the incident, with hashtags on the Twitter-like Weibo related to the shaking garnering more than 780 million views and hundreds of thousands of comments, with many users worried about construction standards.
“Shenzhen should not use this shaking building again. It’s fit for demolition,” wrote a user.
“In today’s cities, there’s no guarantee of the quality of these skyscrapers,” added another.
Completed in 2000, the tower is home to a major electronics market and various offices in the central business district of Shenzhen, a sprawling metropolis of more than 13 million people.
The building is named after the semiconductor and electronics manufacturer Shenzhen Electronics Group, whose offices are based in the complex.
It is the 18th tallest tower in the district, according to the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat skyscraper database.
Chinese authorities last year banned the construction of skyscrapers taller than 500m, adding to height restrictions already enforced in some other cities such as Beijing. – AFP, May 19, 2021
