Three High-Rise Office Buildings, Rio, Brazil
The building had 20 floors in 2012 when it completely crashed into another then-story building and a much smaller four-story building. Naturally, all of them collapsed.
The building’s fall made a killing wave of dust through the area, which killed a minimum of 17 people. Fortunately, the building collapse occurred at a late hour of the day, so all three of them were empty.
The investigation of the case concluded that illegal renovations and construction work did nothing but weaken the 20-story building, which is why it collapsed.
A walkway at the Hyatt Regency, Kansas City, USA
When it comes to collapsing buildings, you might expect to notice right away, but when it comes to the Hyatt Regency in Kansas City, Missouri, everything happened…at once.
The fourth-floor walkway collapsed over another walkway two floors down, and eventually into the lounge below. The walkway was supposed to be the architectural feature of the building.
It was made on 1.5-inch steel rods, but the issue was the fact that they changed from a single set of hanger rods that were threaded through the upper walkways, to no less than a double-rod system that was also anchored to the upper walkways. All of this did nothing but add a ton of pressure and undue stress.
Ronan Point, London, England
In 1968, on May 16, in East London, a single match was the reason why an entire corner of a massive 22-story building collapsed. Ivy Hodge, a 56-year-old cake decorator that was living on the 18th floor, woke up very early to make herself a nice cup of tea, and when her match sparked, it triggered a catastrophic gas explosion.
The load-bearing walls completely came apart, which left the four apartments above the gas explosion without any structural support whatsoever. One by one, they came down.
Royal Plaza Hotel, Nakhon Ratchasima, Thailand
In less than 10 seconds, the Royal Plaza Hotel completely collapsed into a “pile of rubble”. The only thing that was left of the building was the front elevator hall, which was made separately from the rest of the structure.
Gradual deformation caused by creep was the reason why the ground floor support columns fell apart. It was a complete vertical collapse, where 137 people died and 227 were left injured.
