China Health and Safety issues

  Construction The exposure in the back streets of Zhengzhou of a ‘stretching factory’ that is involved in ‘steel thinning’ has called into question the safety of a number of China’s new buildings. The process involves stretching of steel enforcement rods into a slimmer version, and then the sale of excess steel on the local […]

Construction

The exposure in the back streets of Zhengzhou of a ‘stretching factory’ that is involved in ‘steel thinning’ has called into question the safety of a number of China’s new buildings. The process involves stretching of steel enforcement rods into a slimmer version, and then the sale of excess steel on the local commodity market.

The Times [14.9.2011] reported that a ‘menu’ discovered in a thinning workshop in Henan province, offeres to diminish 6.5 mm reinforcement bars to 6 mm and 8 mm to 7mm, reductions that could prove critical. Developers who are suffering from over development in the affordable housing market may be tempted to cut corners, as happened in a recent inspection of such a project in Hainan project. 

This discovery has coincided with the drafting of new guidelines on strenghtening ‘graft’ risk prevention and control’ in Beijing, which has been introduced to clamp down on endemic corruption. The new campaign, launced jointly by the Ministry of Supervision, the National Bureau of Corruption Prevention and the Communist Party’s Central Commission for Discipline and Inspection, has said that it will target infrastructure and construction projects where there is a threat to human life.

Originally posted 2011-09-14 00:00:00.