Why do some houses crumble, while others sway and stand?

Baku/08.02.23/Turan: After the catastrophic earthquakes in Syria and Turkey, Azerbaijanis look with fear at their multi-storey buildings built during the years of the construction boom in the country. The vast majority of residential high-rise buildings in our country were first built by Turkish companies, they were soon replaced by local ones, repeating the practice of the Turks. An important criterion for house-building companies is the cheapness of the apartments being sold, while, as the General Director of the Republican Seismological Service Center at ANAS Gurban Yetirmishli said, since 2019, construction companies in Baku have not turned to them for a seismological map of the area where construction will be carried out.

"A strong earthquake is not expected in Azerbaijan in the coming days," G.Yetirmishli reassured.

Residents recall the Baku earthquake of 2000, listing on social networks the survived, not even cracked buildings of the Soviet and early construction. Imran Kerimov and Akif Hasanov list: "Singapore" houses near the monument to Narimanov ("Wellington Heights"), old houses in the Fortress with walls a meter thick, houses built during the Second World War on Bakikhanov Street, "Stalin" ...

In a conversation with Turan, the son of the honored builder of Azerbaijan, for many years the manager of the “Bakgorstroymekhanization” trust "Adalyat Babayev (1942-2019) - Parviz Babayev spoke about how residential buildings were built in Baku in the Soviet years, and how they differ from modern multi-storey residential buildings.

- Adalat Babayev said that the houses they built were fortified even above the norm. For example, if reinforcement with a thickness of 22 mm was required according to the standard, a thickness of 36 mm was used. The well-known house in Ahmedli, built by the trust, slipped 11 meters during a landslide, and survived.

"The trust headed by my father was one of the first to start construction in Baku in 1996. After the collapse of the USSR, there was a stagnation in this industry, since state subsidies ceased, and there were no private companies yet. Chan Lai Tong tried to manage the company with his advice. Paul was a certified specialist, he built a 100-story building in Sydney and many very serious projects.

Paul Guo brought an engineer from Turkey, who from the very first day began to mock Soviet standards and immediately suggested replacing the 36 mm rebar with a thinner 22 mm rebar, saying that this would be quite suitable for a 17-story building and there would be cost savings. Chiang supported him because the construction would have been cheaper. But Paul categorically insisted on building according to Soviet standards. He motivated by the fact that the locals know the conditions of construction better and he will not change the rules.

During construction in 1999, a devastating earthquake occurred in Turkey, killing more than 10,000 people. Houses were stacked like matchboxes. Hundreds of cases were initiated in connection with poor-quality construction and violation of all existing norms. And during the Baku earthquake in the house built by Paul according to Soviet standards, even the plaster did not crumble.

Adalyat Babayev spoke about a similar situation during the construction of an office building in the center of Baku - Landmark, on the site of an old mill. The Turks built and did not listen to the opinion of experts. Babayev then worked there for some time in one of the offices and saw serious problems: constantly in an emergency order, then in one building, then in another, repair work was going on.

"Dad said that Baku was "lucky", the city is located on the sand and many earthquakes are extinguished by soft soil," the son of the honored builder of Azerbaijan shared his memories.

In Azerbaijan, the most powerful earthquake in 40 years occurred in Baku on November  25, 2000. 22 people died. Of these, three people died directly from injuries sustained during the earthquake. According to the Baku ambulance station, most of the dead died from stress-induced heart attacks. In Baku, the tremors were the strongest - up to 6.5 points. At the epicenter of the earthquake - in the Caspian Sea, the force of the tremors was over 7 points on the Richter scale. There was no serious damage to city buildings. People had to spend the night on the street because of the danger of aftershocks.

The most impressive disaster in the residential sector of Baku was the collapse of an unfinished 16-storey building on August 28, 2007, in the Yasamal district of Baku, along Murtuza Muhtarov Street 185. The cause of the collapse was gross violations of building codes, the government commission concluded.

About 30 workers were inside the building at the time of the collapse. During the first two days, employees of the Ministry of Emergency Situations of Azerbaijan managed to rescue four builders with various injuries from under the rubble and remove the corpses of three people. During the next week, in the process of round-the-clock search work at the scene, 22 more corpses of workers were recovered. The Baku prosecutor's office filed a lawsuit under Articles 222.2 (violation of safety rules for construction, mining, or other work) and 222.1.2 (violation of rules for construction work) of the Criminal Code. Ali Muradov, general director of the construction company Mutafakkir LLC, his brother, chief engineer of the company Asker Aliyev, construction managers Farhad Hasanov, Gadir Salimov and head of the Housing and Communal Department of the Executive Power of Baku Akif Maharramov were arrested and convicted in the case. ---0---