Banquet Hall Collapse Case Study

Introduction A banquet hall collapsed within 30 seconds during the wedding party in Jerusalem on May 24, 2001 resulting in many casualties. This incident happened at that time when people were dancing on the fourth floor of the building. This disaster was due to the failure of many strategies, which were interacted with each other. Now, these strategies are being discussed the causes of which were the reason of the dance hall disaster.

Engineering Strategy The engineering strategy was a main failure in the case of banquet hall collapse of Israel. The engineering and works department did not pay attention to the conditions of buildings in the city. It should be a duty of the engineering department to check the conditions of building every year to make sure that building is meeting the safety standards and therefore they will not be a need for building elimination. There should be restrictions for the amendments in any constructed building during the reconstruction. As in this case the whole structure of the building changed when some pillars and walls were removed during the renovation which weakened the building. It was the duty of engineering department to examine the building not only this building but also other buildings on a regular basis.

Construction Strategy There is a need to adopt new construction strategies in the country. As Israel is situated in an earthquake zone, so the construction strategies must be formulated and strictly implemented in the country. In this case the Pal-Kal construction method was used which is a cheap method having metal plates and thin sheets of concrete. Pal-Kal method is considered the cheapest and lightweight method among other methodology. The dance hall was built by using the Pal-Kal method of construction, which was unable and weak enough to bear the weight and pressure of the people during their dance because of this, the banquet hall collapsed. Powerful and strong construction methods are necessary to use in the