by Nayef Moyhud-Din

Christ, it was a storm of Force 12 on the Beaufort scale!
Surely that rare event would count in his defence. But his entire professional reputation was balancing dangerously towards infamy. The name of Thomas Bouch would forever be tainted with this disaster, not just here in Dundee but throughout the British Empire.

He looked across the Court to see the man from the North British Railway Company stand stony faced as he answered the questions.

"Mr Watt, at the time of 7:15pm on 28th December of this year 1879, you were working as usual at the cabin which sits on the southern end of the Tay Bridge. Do you confirm?"

"Yes, indeed I was."

"And did you bear witness to the tragic events which caused
the loss of 75 lives?"

"Yes, the engine driver had taken the baton and I watched as the train made steam to cross the bridge towards the north cabin. About 200 yards on, I noticed sparks flying from the wheels and about 3 minutes later, I saw a sudden flash and then nothing at all. No tail lamps, no sparks. It felt as if they had been swallowed by the dark night or Nessie herself."

This had actually given Thomas Bouch a glimmer of hope, for if sparks were witnessed then perhaps the bridge collapse was due to train derailment rather than structural weaknesses as he had feared. He dared to glance over to the left to see the President of the Institution of Civil Engineers, William Henry Barlow, sitting along with Henry Law. He knew Mr Law was a Chartered Engineer whose testimony would be strongly valued by this Court of Inquiry. Mr Law studied the sheets of paper in his hands once again before standing up to speak on the cue of Wreck Commissioner Henry Cadogan Rothery.

"Mr Rothery, the bridge used a combination of wrought and cast iron. Firstly, the number of piers was reduced in number from the original design though I suspect this may have been due to cost cutting pressure from the Client. Secondly, the cast iron columns supporting these longer spans were of poor quality. Thirdly, the lugs which are the projections from the columns for fixings were tested for this Inquiry by David Kirkaldy and their capacity was 20 tons instead of Mr Bouch's assumption of 60 tons. However, most crucially of all, I noticed from his design that he used a wind pressure of 10 pounds per sq ft. In my professional opinion, this value should have been 40 pounds per sq ft."

There was a sudden outbreak of murmurings in the Court. Astonished faces looked at each other and then in unison at him.

Thomas felt the full weight of gravity drag him down onto his seat.
There was no way back now. He had cut costs just as the Client had wanted and thus compromised safety. Perhaps Engineers all over the world would learn this mistake.

by Scott Munachen

Carole Eustace had not wanted to move but, on being
shown around the new 12th floor flat, quickly changed her mind.
The lounge was spacious and one wall was completely glazed, giving magnificent views over the River Thames.

"I just fell in love with it ... you just couldn't say no," she enthused. Indeed, it seemed no one could. By 16th May 1968, a few weeks after Carole was shown her flat, all but eight in the block were occupied. Then, just before 6 o'clock that morning, her dreams were shattered.

A gas explosion in Flat 90 tore out the exterior walls on the 18th floor, removing the structural support to the four apartments above, and triggering a devastating chain reaction which saw first one entire wall, then another, popping out of the building like slices of bread flung from a toaster. The impact sent masonry cascading earthbound, razing floor after floor to the ground, slicing off the lounges in all twenty-two flats in the south-east corner of the block. Of the 260 residents, four people were immediately killed in the collapse, and 17 were injured, including a young mother who clung desperately to a narrow ledge as her living room disappeared beneath her. Ronan Point, the towering pride of Newham Borough Council's commitment to a massive regeneration programme, had collapsed like a house of cards.

Ever since the 1956 Housing Act introduced subsidies to local councils for every floor built over five storeys, there existed a clear financial incentive to build high. Standing over 200 ft tall, Ronan Point was just the second of six such tower blocks built by Taylor Woodrow Anglian at cost of £500,000. They were among the 3,000 new residential flats completed that year using the Larsen-Nielsen method, a prefabricated construction technique known as large panel system building, in which the structure was assembled from pre-cast concrete panels, slotted together and fastened by bolts to form the loadbearing walls, floors and roof slabs.

The design, intended for no more than six storeys when originally developed in Denmark, had not been modified to comply with UK building regulations. The lack of structural continuity at the joints of the pre-cast components meant that the blow-out resistance of the main flank wall panels was less than ordinary window glass. Worst still, in making no provision for alternative load paths should a lower level give way, the structure was susceptible to progressive collapse. "I wouldn't live there rent free," exclaimed one former tenant, even after the corner bay was rebuilt as a separate reinforced concrete tower tied into the main building. It was only when the block was finally demolished in 1986 that the full extent of the malpractice was revealed — many of the joints were filled with rubbish instead of mortar!

The disaster was pivotal in transforming public perception of high-rise flats from irresistible 'homes in the sky' to tottering death-traps, and its legacy of widespread legislative reform would cast a long shadow over the events of 9/11.

Dedicated to the memory of Thomas Murrell, Pauline Murrell, Thomas McCluskey and Edith Brigstock

by Richard Balmer

The first of 20 ambulance crews found Patricia Kaylor, clothes shredded and skin blackened, sat stunned on a wall. Loose earth scattered the scene. Smoke issued through the building's roof. Inside, bodies sprawled grotesquely, some with clothing smouldering, many crying for help.

The day: 23rd May 1984. The place: Abbeystead, Lancashire.

Eight died then, eight more later from burns and other injuries. Twenty-eight others suffered, most for years, some even today.

Five years earlier North West Water Authority had begun pumping surplus water from the River Lune through a tunnel to the River Wyre some 10 miles distance away. Valves in a building, sensitively concealed in the hillside near the pretty village of Abbeystead, controlled flow to the Wyre. Villagers had noticed increased local flooding. A total of 44 villagers and officials were gathered inside for a demonstration that the scheme was not the cause.

Perversely drought meant water had not been pumped for the prior 17 days. Critically, Authority practice left a valve cracked open so a void developed in the tunnel. When pumping began air in the void was pushed into the building where someone, it is thought, was lighting a cigarette. The air contained methane. The fireball blasted the gathering across the building, twisting railings and blowing a hole in the concrete roof.

Disasters are sometimes due not to a single but a conspiracy of causes. Had the consultant not concealed the works so well; the drought been less severe or the valve closed; smoking been banned; or the explosion occurred during maintenance, the hazard might unrecognised today or at least have cost fewer lives. It is no comfort that a worse outcome was possible. At the royal opening in 1980 the Queen had been present.

The subsequent enquiry concluded methane had seeped into the void from coal measures 1,000 metres below. Negligence was claimed against the Authority, and both contractor and consultant despite these ceasing involvement five years before. The first judge found all liable. On appeal, two of the four judges found Binnie & Partners, the consultant, solely liable.

Judgement depended crucially on whether ingress of methane should have been foreseen. Lord Justice Bingham, dissenting, said "a professional man should command the corpus of knowledge of the ordinary member of his profession. He should not lag behind. The law does not require that he be a paragon, combining the qualities of polymath and prophet".

Though the contractor had found minute amounts of methane during construction few, if any, 'clean water' engineers would have foreseen the risk at the time. Many consider Binnies harshly treated. The lesson though was simple: every enclosed space represents potential danger.

Abbeystead brought disaster for 44 families, friends and community. It brought disaster for Binnies, a great international water engineering consultant, also. Claims totalling over £4 million were settled at end 1989. Though reported as a merger, Binnies were in fact taken over in 1995 by American consultant Black & Veatch. Their distinguished name disappeared in 2003.