Collapsing buildings

For the past many years, we regularly hear about residential buildings collapsing and killing many, including women and children. There are strict guidelines on how to construct buildings that should, on an average, last a century or more. These buildings are mostly residential flats, where quality of construction has to be ensured by the developers and the building authority alike. How could the quality deteriorate so much that these collapse within a few years?

If there is a building control authority, it must protect people from substandard construction. It should be aware of substandard designs or substandard constructions. Now, wherever a building falls, the concerned authorities, that stand to benefit a lot from approving constructions, should be made to pay. We must make an example of the culprits, so that nobody dares such an omission or commission in the future.

Irfan U Khattak

Abbottabad