BALCONY COLLAPSE… many sent to hospital. Yes it’s happened again, there’s been a balcony collapse, and 18 people taken to hospital, 2 injured seriously. Now fortunately the balcony was only about 3 metres high, however some of the injured were on the ground underneath it, and were crushed from above.
Previous balcony collapses have happened in Auckland but this was in Dunedin, a known “student” town. A development of several shared accommodations surrounded a common courtyard and a local music band gave an impromptu concert.
Obviously many people turned up with many crowding onto the upstairs balconies of the surrounding 2-storey homes. There’s an article on Chch’s Press newspaper’s “Stuff” website, and I am shocked. I am shpcked at the piss-poor design of bulding apparently come up with by qualified highly paid architects and approved by the local Dunedin Shitty Council authority.
Why do we even have building codes ? I am “NOT” a qualified builder, and if I was building a balcony in an area which say ‘did not’ have building codes, even *I* would have built it stronger than this, or at the very very least, had a warning sign “balcony maximum capacity 6 persons or 500kg” etc
My thought’s go back to a dance-floor at the Christchurch University that collapsed when it had the weight and “impact load” of a whole heap of students dancing on it… derrrrr ! Has no-one ever heard of making things “fit for purpose” ?
If you’re going to build balconies on shared student accomodation in Denedin, expect them to be used by crowds of boisterous young students ! Here’s a link to the article and one photo about the middle of the article shows the original attachment of the balcony, it’s obvious it has no supporting pillars underneath and no diagonal bracings either above or below.
I have always worried about the balcony on the upstairs flat at this address which is a similar design. Sure it’s fine for the weight of 6 people sitting and a clothes airer of washing, but could it take the weight of 20 young students dancing ?
Southern Isles Reporter 