4 Divisoria buildings safe

Occupants of four other buildings located near the vicinity of collapsed Sai Building in Divisoria, Manila, can heave a sigh of relief after the Disaster Quick Response Program (DQRP) declared their structures to be safe.

The DQRP is a non-government organization which provides assistance to the government and victims in times of emergency.

Members of DQRP from the Philippine Institute of Civil Engineers (PICE) and Association of Structural Engineers of the Philippines (ACEP) conducted an hour-long inspection on the four buildings, namely the CKS Building, RCS Building, S&U Building and Harvard Building.

Our initial findings during the inspection showed the buildings CKS, RCS, S&U and Harvard have no signs of any damage brought about by the collapse of Sai Building last Friday, engineer Benito Pacheco, PICE head, said.

During the inspection, Pacheco noted that the ground floor of all four buildings appear to have no problems.

The Sai Building, a five-year-old, nine-story structure located at the corner of Padre Rada and Juan Luan streets, collapsed last Friday.

Manila Mayor Lito Atienza ordered a thorough investigation on the incident and pinpoint who should be held responsible for the collapse.

The question of what could have gone wrong and who were responsible should be determined satisfactorily and without any doubts by the fact-finding committee, Atienza said.

The mayor directed the committee chaired by Emmanuel Sison, secretary to the mayor, to come up with a finding in two weeks.

Pacheco said a collapse of a building could be attributed to at least four factors — building foundation, strength of the posts and beams, weight capacity and earthquakes.

"We have to look into the weight loaded in the building. We have to check whether the load of the building was over its capacity," added Pacheco, who also considered evaluating the quality of steel used in the construction.

DQRP has been working in coordination with the National Disaster Coordinating Council in times of disasters since year 2000.