27. The Idiot Architect Whose Incompetent Design Caused a Hotel Collapse
In 1969, the Lian Yak Realty Company broke ground and began construction at the corner of Serangoon Road and Owen Road in Singapore, of a six-story edifice. The building, completed in 1971, housed the New Serangoon Hotel, which had an inauspicious early history. In 1975, the hotel made headlines when 35 of its guests were knocked out and had to be hospitalized because of a toxic carbon monoxide leak. Despite the bad press, the hotel recovered, changed names, and resumed operations.
By the 1980s, the building housed a branch of the Industrial & Commercial Branch on the first floor, and a nightclub on the second floor. The remaining four floors were occupied by a 67-room hotel, the New World Hotel. All was routine on the morning of March 15, 1986, until 11:25 AM. Then, out of the blue, in less than a minute, the entire edifice collapsed. As seen below, investigators discovered that the cause was an idiot architect and idiot engineers who had screwed up basic design and construction calculations.
