Town waiting for answers after 10 of its men go missing in Bangkok tower collapse

Bangkok: Of all the high-rises in Thailand’s heaving capital, why this one? Other buildings have cracks from Friday’s earthquake and need further inspections. But only this office tower being built for Thai bureaucrats is a mound of rubble, entombing dozens of dead workers and trapping others.

Thailand’s Deputy Prime Minister, Anutin Charnvirakul, who visited the site on Saturday during rescue efforts, has no firm answer. For that, he has given an investigation committee a seven-day deadline.

A woman is comforted after being informed that her husband had died at the site of a collapsed under-construction high-rise building in Bangkok.Credit: AP

He said rescuers had a “golden 72 hours” to save people from the rubble, but that window is fast closing, especially in Bangkok’s sweltering heat – 36 degrees on Saturday.

“Currently, we have enough manpower and resources,” Anutin said. “However, if we are offered technological assistance, we would gladly accept it. We also have support from foreign experts, and many of our rescue workers have been trained by international specialists.”

Anutin did reveal a curious detail about the construction of the building, which was to house the state audit office: it had been so hopelessly delayed that the builder was in danger of being sacked.

The consortium behind the construction is ITD-CREC, Thai media has reported. It includes the China Railway No. 10 company and Italian-Thai development, a construction giant involved in some of the country’s biggest infrastructure projects, but which has also been facing a massive debt crunch.

ITD was involved in an expressway bridge that collapsed while under construction this month, killing six people and injuring 24.

While the pandemic had played a significant role in delays, the head of the SAO had told Anutin that the office had considered cancelling the contract due to the prolonged construction period, Anutin said.

The building had recently topped out at 30 or 33 storeys, depending on reports, and was set for completion in August, apparently long after the initial, unspecified deadline. This masthead is attempting to reach the consortium for comment.

Aye Nyein Thu, a migrant labourer from Myanmar, is also trying to get information from the group. She is acting as the contact point between Bangkok and the families of 10 men from her home town of Myanaung, near Yangon, who are missing in the rubble.

Aye Nyein Thu, right, and her brother, Aung Phyo Oo. Their uncle Aung Khin Zaw is missing after the March 28 earthquake, which brought down the office tower he was helping to build in Bangkok.Credit: Zach Hope

One of the men, Aung Khin Zaw, is her uncle. The husband and father of two has been working in Bangkok for a year after leaving his war-torn and economically depressed nation for work. It is believed most of the missing workers are low-paid labourers from Myanmar and Cambodia.

Aye Nyein said she last spoke to her uncle on Messenger two days before the earthquake. It was the usual conversation about work and how much overtime he was getting – usually two to three hours a day, she said. Then on Friday afternoon, people in her home town called her to tell her that the collapsed building in Bangkok was the one on which their men had been working.

“I tried to call his phone, but there was no signal,” Aye Nyein says. “I am still hoping [he is alive].”

She has not been able to contact the consortium either.

The skyscraper’s spectacular collapse was captured on mobile phone video, becoming the most emblematic visual of the 7.7-magnitude earthquake that had its epicentre in the information black hole of military-controlled Myanmar. In that country, more than 1600 are dead, a figure that will certainly rise, possibly by the thousands.

At least nine workers are dead. The official figure for those trapped in the debris has been swinging wildly. The latest official count is 78, but there are also fears this number could be greater because some of the workforce might be undocumented.

Hundreds of rescue workers and support staff from innumerable institutions have amassed at the site, a short stroll from Bangkok’s Chatuchak market. Some have not stopped in their efforts. Those recently relieved from their duties were scattered through the staging area sleeping against walls or slumped into their forearms. The fine dust from the building is everywhere not yet trampled by rushing crews.

Sniffer dogs, drones and mobile phone signals are being used to find survivors. Oxygen was also being pumped into the rubble, authorities said.

Amarin K, a salesperson at a glassware shop across the street from the collapse, caught a glance of the then-standing tower as she was trying to protect herself and her young niece from the earthquake’s rocking.

The crane at the top was shaking so violently she had to look away. Then came the sound. Amarin grabbed her niece, locked the cash register and ran.

She was back at work on Saturday, the following day. The metro train system and skyrail were open again. Patients and doctors had returned to their hospitals. All but a few hundred people had gone back to their residential buildings. Notwithstanding it was a weekend, most of Bangkok had returned to normalcy.

The tragic exception is the four-storey-high mound of rubble at Chatuchak.

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