Common causes of building collapse in Ghana
The collapse of buildings in the country in recent times has become very alarming, resulting in the killing of innocent people, infringing permanent disability on many and destroying properties.
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It also comes at a huge cost to the state through the clearing of debris and rescue of survivors.
Between 2012 and 2014, Accra, the capital city of Ghana, officially recorded four major building collapse that claimed a total of 19 lives.
The Melcom building collapse near Achimota in 2012 claimed 14 lives whereas the Grand View Hotel building collapse at Nii-Boi Town in 2014 recorded four deaths. Two other buildings collapsed in 2014; the building near Akai House at Cantonments claimed one life while the Central University hostel building collapse in Dawhenya recorded no death.
Recently, there was another multi-storey building collapse in Cantonments that recorded three deaths. A critical review of these buildings showed that almost all buildings that collapsed within this period were privately owned properties.
Structural failure
Buildings in general serve many purposes including provision of shelter for man, protecting properties, and other activities.
With these purposes that buildings provide, there is always the need to properly plan, design and construct them to obtain the expected satisfaction from the environment and prevent buildings from collapsing. Collapse of buildings is the worst form of structural failure and building professionals see it as a building failure of a higher magnitude.
Therefore, efforts should be made to minimise them. History has recorded that during the Babylonian era, the, collapse of buildings attracted severe punishment, including execution of craftsmen.
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This showed how the early Babylonian kingdom attached great importance to preventing buildings from collapsing.
Every building can collapse but multi-storey structures are more prone to collapse of a higher magnitude. Multi-storey buildings may collapse when there is structural failure.
Structural collapse may be unique with every building, however, the reasons why a building will collapse could generally be attributed to either natural or man-made infrastructural disasters.
For natural disasters such as typhoons, cyclones, tsunamis, earthquakes and many more, Ghana is blessed as a nation not to be experiencing any of these. The man-made disasters are born out of man’s negligence.
In Ghana, almost all structural failures could be attributed to man-made phenomena. These man-made phenomena are very noticeable and the commonest in our construction industry that usually contribute to structural failure include lack of soil type investigation, poor building design and planning, use of inferior or sub-standard building materials, weak supervision, use of incompetent contractors, and lack of enforcement of building standards and codes.
Soil bearing capacity
The soil type which holds an infrastructure is a critical area one needs to investigate before building any multi-storey structure.
This is important because it provides information on the soil bearing capacity. Every building carries a specific load that needs to be safely transferred to the ground via the foundation. It is unfortunate that in Ghana, many private owners may not know this and, therefore, never perform any soil test.
Accra is very critical due to the soil composition and properties as well as its seismic properties.
Poor building design and planning contributes significantly to the collapse of multi-storey buildings. At the design and planning stage, building professionals, including architects and structural engineers, perform detailed calculations to ensure a sustainable structural integrity of the building. In cases of wrong calculations from any of the professionals, a multi-storey structure may collapse from varying reasons, including excess load exerted on supporting pillars of the building.
In Accra, it is now a requirement to provide structural calculations and integrity reports on any multi-storey buildings, but this is yet to achieve full enforcement.
The use of inferior and sub-standard building materials play a major role in the collapse of buildings.
Low strength of mortar, concrete and sandcrete blocks may not be able to withstand dead and live loads that come with multi-storey buildings.
It is even worse with commercial sandcrete blocks and concrete manufacturers who always want to make outrageous profit at the expense of product quality.
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Weak supervision and the use of incompetent contractors may also lead to the collapse of multi-storey buildings.
The construction stage of a multi-storey building is the stage that needs effective supervision because of inadequate skills and knowledge among masons.
A good design may fail when clients fail to secure competent professionals to oversee the construction stage.
Most clients are interested in the building approval stage and not the aftermath. Thus they do away with professionals when approvals are given by authorities.
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A contractor who lacks the requisite skills and is very ignorant of construction skills may have a negative impact on either the pre and post construction stage of multi-storey buildings.
Disregard for building regulations
Lastly, a building may collapse when there is gross disregard for building regulations, codes and standards. Currently, in Ghana, many private developers have developed an appetite to get returns on their investments in building projects.
As such, developers build without the required approval from state institutions, because of perceived weak state institutions, bribery and corruption, as well as political interferences from ruling governments. State institutions on the other hand, have failed woefully in carrying out effective monitoring mechanisms on buildings, especially multi-storey structures.
It would be recommended that as a way forward in preventing future collapse, proper education may periodically be given to masons and contractors on some common causes of building collapse.
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Moreover, state authorities mandated to monitor building projects in the country should make sure that builders abide by certain accepted standards. Mandated institutions must be held responsible and accountable by government.
They must also pull down unauthorised structures and severely punish developers who go contrary to strict building rules of the land.
It is also recommended that the Accra Metropolitan Authority (AMA) sublet the supervision of certain multi-storey structures to professional bodies such as the Ghana Institution of Engineers (GhIE), Ghana Institution of Architects, etc. who would form taskforces to make sure that sanity prevails in the construction of such buildings.
The writer is a research scientist at the Building and Road Research Institute of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research.
Write’s e-mail: b23mark@yahoo.com