By Kloe Palmer
An international expert at the Royal Commission into the Canterbury earthquakes has slammed a Department of Building and Housing report that blames the CTV building's design for its collapse.
The report says the CTV building's concrete columns failed when they were shaken by the earthquakes.
Structural engineer Professor John Mander, who trained locally but now works in Texas and was flown in to give his opinions, says that’s not a very useful conclusion.
“Too vague to be meaningful, and one did not need to spend millions of dollars to get to this conclusion, anyone from the street could of come to this conclusion,” he says.
He says the report needed to delve much deeper.
“It was neither helpful or insightful.”
The building's design has been criticised but Mr Mander defended it, saying it withstood the first earthquake in September 2010 well.
“The fact that the CTV building survived the September earthquake with only minor damage was testament to it's design. It met the aim and objective of design codes of the day,” says Mr Mander.
He told the inquiry more caution was needed and more building checks should have been done after the initial earthquake.
“We should work under the adage that these buildings are guilty until they are proven innocent.”
He says after the first earthquake it was wrong for people to judge whether a building was safe or not.. Based simply on what they could see.
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