Can you imagine? A hospital hall with a total investment of up to 2 billion yuan and won the "Luban Prize", the highest honor award in China's construction industry, suddenly collapsed without any warning! What's going on here? Is it a natural disaster or a man-made disaster? Who is the contractor? Why did they build such a tofu scum project?
The shocking accident occurred in Suqian, Jiangsu Province, at the First People's Hospital of Suqian City. This hospital is the only public first-class general hospital in Suqian City, the Suqian Branch of Jiangsu Provincial People's Hospital, and the First People's Hospital of Suqian affiliated to Nanjing Medical University. The building area of the hospital is 2650,000 square meters, with a total investment of more than 2 billion yuan, started construction in February 2013 and officially operated on July 19, 2016.
The outpatient hall of the hospital is the façade of the hospital and an important functional area of the hospital. The design and construction of the outpatient hall of the hospital was undertaken by China Railway Construction Group. The company is a wholly-owned subsidiary of China Railway Construction Co., Ltd., a large-scale comprehensive construction enterprise with international competitiveness, with national first-class general contracting qualifications, and its business covers railways, highways, municipal, housing construction, water conservancy and other fields.
The outpatient hall of this hospital, with its unique design concept and excellent engineering quality, won the China Construction Engineering Luban Award (National Quality Project) in 2016. This is an award dedicated to China's outstanding construction projects, and is the highest honor award for engineering quality in China's construction industry. This is also the first time that Suqian City has won the "Luban Prize" project.
The design of the outpatient hall of the hospital is inspired by the meaning of "the river of life, the boat of hope". The inpatient building is used as a sail, and the outpatient and emergency and comprehensive buildings are used as boats, symbolizing the hope of life. The total construction area is 217812 square meters, with 1 underground floor, the highest 21 floors above ground, and the total height of the building is 9960 meters.
However, in the lobby of this hospital, which is hailed as an architectural marvel, a catastrophic accident occurred on the night of February 20, 2024. At 22:37 that night, the lighting roof above the outpatient hall of the hospital suddenly fell off, and a large amount of glass, aluminum alloy, cement and other building materials fell to the ground, causing serious damage. Fortunately, since it was already off-duty at the time of the incident, there were no personnel in the hospital lobby, so there were no people.
After the accident, it attracted widespread attention from all walks of life. The selection office, that is, the China Construction Industry Association, as the selection organization of the Luban Award, attached great importance to this matter, and immediately sent an expert group to the scene to carry out urgent investigation and verification work. They conducted a comprehensive investigation of the scene of the accident, collected relevant evidence and information, and analyzed and judged the cause of the accident.
After a preliminary investigation by the expert group, the main cause of the accident was structural design defects and substandard construction quality. The team found that the lighting roof of the hospital's outpatient hall was made of glass and aluminum alloy, and its structural design did not take into account the impact of extremely bad weather, and did not set up sufficient support and protective measures, resulting in the deformation and fracture of the roof after being subjected to a large amount of rain, snow and freezing pressure. At the same time, in the construction process, there are also serious quality problems, the construction is not carried out in accordance with the design requirements and specifications, and the unqualified materials and processes are used, resulting in the insufficient strength and stability of the roof, and the inability to resist the effect of external forces.
The expert group believes that this accident is a typical tofu slag project, which exposes the technical level and low management level of the construction party, and also exposes the dereliction of duty and malfeasance of the regulatory authorities. This kind of accident has seriously damaged the safety of people's lives and property, seriously damaged the reputation and image of China's construction industry, and seriously damaged the authority and credibility of the Luban Award.
The selection office said that they will seriously deal with the matter, investigate the person responsible for the accident in accordance with laws and regulations, and at the same time, they will conduct a comprehensive inspection and improvement of the selection mechanism and standards of the Luban Award to prevent similar accidents from happening again. They also called on the country's construction industry peers to take this incident as a reference, strengthen their own technological innovation and management innovation, improve the quality and safety of projects, and contribute to the construction of a better China.
The collapse of the hospital hall is a wake-up call for us. In construction engineering, we should not only look at the gorgeous and magnificent surface, but also look at the internal quality and safety. We should not ignore the importance of project quality because we are greedy for profit and convenience, and we should not ignore the authenticity of project quality because of the pursuit of honor and fame. We should draw lessons from this accident, strengthen the supervision and guarantee of the quality of the project, and ensure that every construction project can become the well-being and pride of the people.