Paint cans in Taiwanese walls demonstrate why Canada must maintain tough building codes

It seems shocking to us in Canada that empty paint or cooking oil cans would find their way inside supporting walls of a high-rise apartment, but that’s what has been found on the site of the Golden Dragon apartment building in South Taiwan.

At least 34 died in the apartment collapse following a 6.4 magnitude earthquake last week, and dozens are still missing. Photographs of the demolished building taken during search efforts reveal empty cans of a Japanese brand of paint ‘Alesco’. Other reports claim that empty cans are those of cooking oil.

Empty blue and white cans are clearly visible in the rubble of the collapsed Taiwanese apartment building

Weird, but not illegal!
Furthermore, the use of re-purposed materials like these cans in areas such as structural walls was not only common but perfectly legal at the time of the building’s construction in 1994. According to Taiwan’s Central News Agency (CNA) “The use of cooking oil cans for such purposes in construction was not illegal prior to September 1999, but since then Styrofoam and formwork boards have been used instead.”

Empty cans were popular for bulking up the appearance of certain design elements of buildings. Tai Yun-fa, a Taiwanese a structural engineer, told CNA that cooking oil cans were used as fillers inside pillars in many buildings constructed before September 21, 1999. That’s when a deadly magnitude 7.3 quake killed 2,415 people in Taiwan. Yet, Tai explained that this would be strictly for aesthetic purposes. “A pillar that supports a structure undoubtedly will be made of reinforced concrete, but an architect has to consider aesthetics as well as safety and may wish to enlarge the pillar without significantly increasing the weight,” he said.

Did banks have prior knowledge of problems?
Also disturbing are reports from Reuters  that some residents of the Golden Dragon building had their original mortgage applications turned down due to concerns of poor building techniques, yet the applicants were not informed of these concerns.

Although the company that constructed the Golden Dragon apartment is apparently no longer in business, it is reported that the developer of the building has been arrested.

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