February 9th, 2009
Peking skyscraper fully ablaze –
but will it stand?
It will be interesting to see if the steel skeleton of this 34-floor tower entirely engulfed by flames suffers or collapses in anything like the fashion of the Twin Towers or WTC 7 on September 11, 2001.
And the answer is …?
No. Not even close. Nothing like. (The kink in the building was there by design.) More photos.
The steel neither melted nor weakened sufficiently to cause collapse of any sort — just like all the other burnt steel skyscrapers in history, except the three that collapsed neatly on 9/11/01.
One report says a big explosion also rocked the building — captured in this photo, perhaps.
Let’s see what the experts say …
ed says:
This piece says the building used “far less steel” than most skyscrapers, relating that to an effort to withstand big earthquakes.
It does look like there’s a ton of concrete in the steel mesh.
February 11th, 2009 at 2:59 pm