Measure twice ...

Pour concrete once:


Seems all the rain they've been having, combined with excavation of the parking garage next door, unsettled things.

The 13-story building is part of the Lotus Riverside complex in suburban Shanghai. The cause of this epic structural fail is under investigation, but first sources claim that an error on construction and unstable soil conditions are the probable causes.

Don't know about you, but an "error in construction" would be way up my list of likely causes. Maybe that's just me.

What's amazing is the building fell over but didn't shatter on impact. One of the comments explains things:

My source out of Shanghai states that the news reported that the building collapsed when the river bank gave way from the excavation of the parking garage. The collapsing bank and shallow piles were enough to cause the building to fall over (considering the ground was mush from heavy rain, the building fell over rather slowly cause it to remain mostly intact) Also, due to low grade concrete, Chinese residential buildings use rather large amounts of lower grade concrete, making the structures very monolithic and versely stable, hence the intact nature of the fallen building

Sadly, a worker died in the incident.