Comments

1. Everyone hates governmental oversight, but this is why we have standards in modern Western countries so this stuff doesn’t happen.

2. In January I came here and watched a man get lynched in Ecuador. Today, I see a photo of a person crushed by concrete.

   And in neither case was there a warning about “hey this is graphic so open at your own risk.”

   What the hell is wrong with you?

3. Couldn’t find a way to link this tragedy to the Austin City Council? Or maybe homeless in San Francisco? Undocumented immigrants in border cities? Corrupt Chicago politicians? Gavin Newsom? Electric cars? Excessive regulations?

   Come on, man. You can do better than Biden last night.

4. stunning engineering and construction failure. It rains in India. A lot at times.

   To have such a massive failure at a new facility that is the gateway to the country should make India engage in some deep soul searching.

5. Please include a warning when including or linking to graphic images.

6. I wonder what Modi supporters got the terminal contracts.

7. We do have bridge and overpass collapses and such that happen in the US too, but the amount of corruption involved in India with engineering and construction projects is a big part about why a lot of people in India had chosen engineering as a job: plentiful opportunities for kickbacks from suppliers/contractors, and suppliers/contractors too can skimp in ways that increase safety risk. Add in the corrupt building inspection dynamic, and then the risk of such kinds of infrastructure breaks become even higher than they
   otherwise are because of the environmental/climate/pollution and basic material factors involved.

8. Some of those links have rather graphic images of harm done to people at the place.

9. I am curious like ted poco too. But corruption in India is so endemic that politicians and bureaucrats of most stripes are on board that corruption is what greases the wheels to make India move. And I say that as someone who is highly critical of the vile Modi machine and the corruption in India that is on an unprecedented scale for the country.

10. Heavy rain, extreme heat, awful pollution, a bad fog season, and other such things are the norm for the area depending on the time of year. Delhi has a monsoon season with heavy downpours.

11. ‘To have such a massive failure at a new facility that is the gateway to the country should make India engage in some deep soul searching.’

    Terminal 1 in Delhi has only domestic flights, so it’s not a gateway to the country. Terminal 3 is the international terminal and that has lasted many years. Same general contractor for all the Terminals, but the subcontractors could be different.

12. @Mike says: Everyone hates governmental oversight, but this is why we have standards in modern Western countries so this stuff doesn’t happen.

    This is exactly backwards, and it is reliance on “government oversight” that allows these things to happen. This structure was obviously not designed correctly, and certainly not inspected correctly, and given the location we can be reasonably sure that corruption was involved – likely both in the selection and inspection of the work – because government employees are far less accountable to the public than private corporations incentivized by the profit motive who get harshly penalized when they kill people.

13. A lot of non technical people speculating on the cause and blaming people in various businesses. At this time the blame cannot be apportioned. While engineering or construction could be found to be the blame, there is no solid reason to say either one is the blame at this time. The problem could lie in bolts used to fasten parts together if the metallurgy is not correct (or other substandard parts). It could lie in improper repairs. It could lie in improper inspections that failed to detect corrosion. The hope is that corruption and politics don’t get in the way of truthful fact finding and reporting.

14. Delhi has seen extremes in one month. Last month it was 50 degrees celsius. This week it rained like it never has. Not sure if such massive extremes were built in the structural calculations.

15. ‘@Mak

    This structure was obviously not designed correctly, and certainly not inspected correctly, and given the location we can be reasonably sure that corruption was involved – likely both in the selection and inspection of the work – because government employees are far less accountable to the public than private corporations incentivized by the profit motive who get harshly penalized when they kill people.’

    You’re clearly completely ignorant about India. Private corporations in India are most definitely NOT harshly penalized when they kill people. Civil and Criminal cases in India can drag on for decades. Witnesses die or are bought off, judges are bought off etc etc. And generally SPGs are used for these projects, so even if the corporation involves has to pay out, the promoters of the parent group suffer very few damages.

    ‘

16. Mak, good point. There is a tendency to think that if the government didn’t inspect eggs, for example, we’d get dangerous eggs. The alternative is to wonder what type of private inspection mechanism firms would pay for to attract consumers.

17. Mak clearly doesn’t understand India while this Jon seems to know India.

    Private companies in India get away with a lot and on the relative cheap compared to the government. The government pays out far faster and more than the corrupting forces of what passes for India’s private sector and government contractors. The government counts on voters and on shielding its favorites in the private sector.

    New Delhi happens to be one of the places where I have lived for work.