Insufficient load capacity due to flawed structural design
Deaths
23
Non-fatal injuries
380
Charges
Manslaughter, Negligence
At 22:43 on May 24, 2001, a large portion of the third floor of the Versailles Wedding Hall collapsed in Talpiot, Jerusalem, Israel. Twenty-three people fell to their deaths through two stories, while another 380 were injured to varying degrees.[1][2]
In the aftermath of the disaster, the Israeli parliament passed the "Versailles Law" establishing a special committee responsible for treating the people injured in the disaster and an investigative committee was established by the then-Prime MinisterAriel Sharon under the leadership of the former judge Vardimos Zeiler, which probed both the Versailles disaster and the Maccabiah bridge collapse which had occurred several years earlier.
Eli Ron, who invented the Pal-Kal construction method, and three engineers involved in the construction of the hall were found guilty along with the three owners of the hall of causing death by negligence and sabotage by negligence.
Background
The Versailles Wedding Hall was built in 1986 in Talpiot in southeastern Jerusalem by engineer Eli Ron, who invented the Pal-Kal method. The floors were built with metal plates and thin layers of cement. The floor had started to visibly sag and as a result, the owners installed partitions on the floors below to stabilize and correct the sagging floors. Shortly thereafter, the owners, thinking that the issue was cosmetic, decided to remove these partitions.
A bridge collapse during the 1997 Maccabiah Games had killed four Australian participants. Investigations found that poor construction methods were at fault for the collapse and the engineers responsible for the construction of the bridge were found guilty of death by negligence.
Collapse
On May 24, 2001, the third floor of the wedding hall was being used to host the wedding of Keren and Asaf Dror. Shortly before the collapse, hundreds of wedding guests were on the dance floor (with a cover by Sarit Hadad of the song “Lev Zahav” playing) when wedding guests noticed the floor sagging several inches seconds before the fall. The third floor then gave way sending hundreds of guests plummeting two stories below.[citation needed]
Casualties
23 people would perish from the fall and 380 people were injured to varying degrees including bride Keren Dror, who suffered serious pelvic injuries which required multiple surgeries. Asaf Dror, the groom, escaped serious injury.
Rescue efforts
Rescue efforts were carried out by the Home Front Command's Search & Rescue Unit and the Yachtza reserve unit. Rescue efforts commenced immediately after the collapse. Rescue efforts were immediate and included digging barehanded [4] and continued until 4pm on Saturday May 26, 2001. Three people were pulled from the rubble alive, and 23 bodies were removed.
Documentation
The disaster was captured by cameraman David Amromin who was recording the wedding via camcorder. The footage which captured the collapse and subsequent mayhem was broadcast around the world on TV networks.[5]
An investigation of the event concluded that it was not caused by a terrorist attack (the disaster occurred during the Second Intifada). This was based on the testimony provided by many of the wedding guests present in the building during the disaster. Witnesses reported seeing a dangerous sag in the floor moments before the collapse. An initial inquiry blamed the collapse on the Pal-Kal method of constructing light-weight coffered concrete floor systems which was banned shortly after the completion of the wedding hall since it was known and proven to be unsafe. Further review pointed to a combination of two alternative causes.
Initially, the side of the building that failed was designed to be a two-story structure, while the other side was designed to be three stories. Late in the construction process, it was decided that both sides of the building should be equal heights, and a third story was added to the shorter side. However, the live load due to occupancy is typically much greater than the design load for a roof. As a result, the structure supporting the new third story was subjected to much greater loading than was originally anticipated. The effect of this error was somewhat mitigated by the construction of partitions on the floor below, which helped redistribute the excess load such that no damage was incurred.
A few weeks before the collapse, the wedding hall owners decided to remove the partitions. With the load path eliminated, the floor above began to sag several centimetres. The owners viewed the sagging floor primarily as a cosmetic problem, and attempted to level it with additional grout and fill. However, their approach not only failed to provide additional structural capacity, it also inadvertently introduced a new and significant dead load at the weakened area.
During the wedding event in 2001, this significantly overstressed floor section failed, resulting in the catastrophe. The engineer Eli Ron, inventor of the Pal-Kal method of construction, was arrested and subsequently indicted in August 2002 on the charge of manslaughter.[6]
Aftermath
Following the disaster, the "Versailles Law" was passed by the Parliament of Israel. This law established a special committee responsible for treating the people injured in the disaster. Moreover, an official investigation committee was established by the then Prime Minister Ariel Sharon under the leadership of the former judge Vardimos Zeiler (he), who was in charge of the security of public places and buildings. The Zeiler Committee on Building Safety investigated both the Versailles wedding hall collapse as well as the Maccabiah bridge collapse which occurred four years earlier in 1997, and released its final report in December 2003.
In October 2004, the three owners of Versailles wedding hall — Avraham Adi, Uri Nisim, and Efraim Adiv – were convicted of causing death by negligence and causing damage by negligence. Adi and Adiv were sentenced to 30 months' imprisonment while Nisim was sentenced to four months of community service.[7]
The wedding hall was subsequently demolished, and as of 2023 the site remained unoccupied and sealed. Across the street from the site is a memorial garden with names of victims inscribed on a wall.
In May 2007, Eli Ron and three engineers involved in the building's construction were sentenced to prison by the Jerusalem District Court. Eli Ron received a four-year sentence, Shimon Kaufman and Dan Sheffer 22 months, and Uri Pessah six months. In December 2006, the court convicted all three men of causing death by negligence and sabotage by negligence.[8]
In popular culture
The Pal-Kal issue was mentioned in the episode "Point of Origin", season 1, episode 5, of the show 9-1-1, where an Indian Wedding goes awry when dancing guests collapse the third floor, killing dozens. Captain Robert Nash describes the building having used the prohibited "Kal-Pal" technique and angrily attacks the owner for causing death by negligience.
Memorial
A memorial garden to the victims was built near the disaster site.
Hyatt Regency walkway collapse, a similar incident that occurred 20 years prior that was due to insufficient load capacity as a result of negligent design flaws.
Talpiot is an Israeli neighborhood in southeastern Jerusalem, established in 1922 by Zionist pioneers. It was built as a garden suburb on land purchased by the Tel Aviv-based Palestine Land Development Company and other Jewish building societies.
The World Trade Center in New York City collapsed on September 11, 2001, as result of the al-Qaeda attacks. Two commercial airliners hijacked by al-Qaeda terrorists were deliberately flown into the Twin Towers of the complex, resulting in a total progressive collapse that killed almost 3,000 people. It is the deadliest and most costly building collapse in history.
On July 17, 1981, the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Kansas City, Missouri, suffered the structural collapse of two overhead walkways. Loaded with partygoers, the concrete and glass platforms cascaded down, crashing onto a tea dance in the lobby, killing 114 and injuring 216. Kansas City society was affected for years, with the collapse resulting in billions of dollars of insurance claims, legal investigations and city government reforms.
Ronan Point was a 22-storey tower block in Canning Town in Newham, East London, that partly collapsed on 16 May 1968, only two months after it had opened. A gas explosion blew out some load-bearing walls, causing the collapse of one entire corner of the building; four people died and 17 were injured. The nature of the failure led to a loss of public confidence in high-rise residential buildings, and major changes in British building regulations resulted.
The Pemberton Mill was a large factory in Lawrence, Massachusetts. It suddenly collapsed and occupants were crushed or burned alive on January 10, 1860, in what has been called "the worst industrial accident in Massachusetts history" and "one of the worst industrial calamities in American history." An estimated 88 to 145 workers were killed and 166 injured.
The 15th Maccabiah Games are remembered for being marred by a bridge collapse that killed several participants.
Progressive collapse is the process where a primary structural element fails, resulting in the failure of adjoining structural elements, which in turn causes further structural failure.
The Maccabiah bridge collapse was the catastrophic failure of a pedestrian bridge over the Yarkon River in Tel Aviv, Israel on July 14, 1997. The collapse of the temporary metal and wooden structure killed four and injured more than 60 Australian athletes and other team delegates who were visiting Israel to participate in the Maccabiah Games. One athlete died in the collapse and three died afterwards due to infections caused by exposure to the polluted river water. A subsequent investigation found that negligent shortcuts had been taken in the bridge's construction, mandatory permits and oversight had not been obtained, and the bridge's construction did not meet government requirements.
The Club Cinq-Sept fire was a major blaze at a nightclub just outside Saint-Laurent-du-Pont, Isère, France, on Sunday, 1 November 1970. The fire claimed the lives of 146 people, almost all of whom were aged between 17 and 30. The scale of the disaster shocked the country. Subsequent official enquiries revealed a catalogue of shortcomings, oversights and evasions with regard to fire safety at both local and département level. Criminal charges were brought against a number of people; some received suspended jail sentences.
The Sennichi Department Store Building fire occurred in Sennichimae, Minami-ku, Osaka, Japan on May 13, 1972. The fire killed at least 118 people and injured another 78. It was the deadliest department store fire in Japan. The building that housed the department store also contained various other businesses, including a cabaret. All of the victims had been in the cabaret.
The Philadelphia Pier 34 collapse occurred on May 18, 2000 and caused the death of three women inside Club Heat and injuries to dozens of people, as the 91-year-old structure fell into the Delaware River.
On June 29, 1995, the Sampoong Department Store in Seoul, South Korea, collapsed due to a structural failure. The collapse killed 502 people and injured 937, making it the largest peacetime disaster in South Korean history. It was the deadliest non-deliberate modern building collapse until the 2013 Rana Plaza factory collapse in Bangladesh.
The collapse of the Royal Plaza Hotel occurred on 13 August 1993 in the city of Nakhon Ratchasima (Korat) in Thailand, killing 137 people and injuring 227. Taking just less than 10 seconds, the building collapsed and transformed the 6-storey complex into a pile of rubble, leaving only the front elevator hall which was separately built from the rest of the structure. Gradual deformation due to creep weakened all the ground floor support columns and when one failed the rest rapidly followed, resulting in an almost complete vertical collapse. Several people were rescued from the rubble and trapped victims called for help using mobile phones. Violation of safety regulations and an unprofessional approach on the part of the engineer were deemed to be the cause of the disaster. Police arrested the owner of the building and five others. Rescue operations continued for more than 20 days, until 3 September. It is one of the most fatal and disastrous man-made accidents in Thai history.
Structural integrity and failure is an aspect of engineering that deals with the ability of a structure to support a designed structural load without breaking and includes the study of past structural failures in order to prevent failures in future designs.
The Dar es Salaam building collapse occurred during the early hours of Good Friday on 29 March 2013 when a 16-floor residential apartment building collapsed on a nearby mosque compound, killing 36 people and trapping over 60 under the rubble.
The Rana Plaza collapse was a structural failure that occurred on 24 April 2013 in the Savar Upazila of Dhaka District, Bangladesh, where an eight-story commercial building called Rana Plaza collapsed. The search for the dead ended on 13 May 2013 with a death toll of 1,134. Approximately 2,500 injured people were rescued from the building. It is considered the deadliest accidental structural failure in modern human history, the deadliest garment-factory disaster in history and the deadliest industrial accident in the history of Bangladesh.
Mohammad Sohel Rana is the owner of Rana Plaza which collapsed in Savar, a sub-district near Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh. He is a Jubo League leader of Bangladesh Awami League.
The NIST World Trade Center Disaster Investigation was a report that the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) conducted to establish the likely technical causes of the three building failures that occurred at the World Trade Center following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. The report was mandated as part of the National Construction Safety Team Act, which was signed into law on October 1, 2002 by President George W. Bush. NIST issued its final report on the collapse of the World Trade Center's twin towers in September 2005, and the agency issued its final report on 7 World Trade Center in November 2008.
On 23 May 2022, the Metropol building, a ten-story residential and commercial building in Abadan, Iran, collapsed while under construction. As of 6 June 2022, at least 41 people had died and 37 others were injured in the incident, according to Iranian state media. In the following weeks, demonstrations related to the incident have occurred in the Khuzestan province, where Abadan is located, and other parts of Iran. According to The Guardian, the collapse "dredged up memories of past national disasters and shone a spotlight on shoddy construction practices, government corruption and negligence in Iran".
Pal-Kal was a construction method for concrete ceilings, invented by engineer Eli Ron in the late 1970s.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
