Interesting view on google earth from 26th March this year
54.985586° -1.737813°Lots of fixed pipework in place presumably pumping water away from just downstream of the collapse, also some collapse of road surface visible too.
The pipework is still in sight in aerial footage today, except there is huge waterfall nearby.
Strangely Google Maps sat view doesn't show the pipes.
brain fart
I had meant to type "pumping water away from around where collapse occurred"
dates back to May and June started pumping after a culvert collapsed
some difference between streetview and current view as well, Holbeck Hall is what regretably it seems reminiscent of
I don't know about the pipes, but my guess is that the building was built on made-up ground, and that piles were used to connect it to something firm. It still seems to be supported by those piles, even though they're no longer surrounded by anything. If they go deep enough, it *may* be ok even though it *looks* precarious.
Looking at Google Maps there clearly should be a river there, so built on made up ground over a culvert?
Even with end-bearing piles, they still rely on the soil around them to provide lateral stability. Imagine supporting a weight on drinking straws - it's not the weight crushing the straws that would cause it to fall over, it's the sideways motion.
Like the 'knocked through lounges' on the row of terraced houses...
That's odd I looked last night (google maps ona tablet) and there was a =
good half dozen pipes going from just below the precarious block and where the waterfall from the carpark now is (was?), They run along Hareside Walk, turn right onto Millfield Lane then dive under the road through some trees to a collection of large yellow boxes, presumably pumps. There are a cpuple of other pipes carrying on further north pasta= yard but stopping before a blue roofed shed.
Looks to me like the culvert collapsed a while ago(*) and pumps have bee= n installed to bypass the collapse but the amount of water coming down overwhelmed the capacity. The water then flowed throgh the estate to the= car park wall by the block, pushed that over then proceeded to wrrod backwards up the carpark taking out the ground around the piles.
The BBC video with words from Ben Brown and Emily Maitliss has good images but their words are laughable. How is the place still standing if= the foundations have been washed away FFS! And couple fo plastic bags waving in the breeze to stem the damage. Gawd I've got some pencil sharpenings that are longer than those two short planks.
I saw what I think was a local stringer (might have been EM) further down the hill. She asked *really* inane questions, and then described a single car being 'rescued from the carnage'. Completely inappropriate words....
According to the latest bulletins the flats are most likely to be pulled down.
Not much pulling necessary, I'd have thought.
Allegedy there's much argument about who's responsible. The land apparently belongs to the Duke of Northumberland, but I'd have thought that the whole cockup is the responsibility of the builder and perhaps the local authority's building control people.
Presumably the NHBC will be involved if these are fairly recently molished dwellings.
They'll send someone round with a mastic gun tomorrow.
Well with those piles and things they obviously knew the ground wasn't that stable and put the piles down to something that was, as witness the fact the building is still standing despite having the soil washed out from underneath it.
As I see it the liabilty is down to the owner of the culvert for not maintining it properly and/or not repairing it in a timely manner. They even had a warning that something was happening underground when that hole opened up in Millfield Lane a month before the culvert collasped and caused a flood in June.
I don't think there is anything wrong with the construction.
Eulers slender column theory or Euler instability.
They obviously havent collapsed yet
If the piles are holding, simplests is to shutter them and cast concrete round them.
Then build a proper water channel and backfill the whole site.
I think you have it in a nutshell
+1
I would say so.
Whilst in principle they could easily be underpinned, the Elfin Safety aspects of making sure they stayed up whilst the work was carried out probably precludes that.
sharp hammer tap halfway up the outermost column.
Yup. But actually the real culprit is whoever was responsible for the water management.
I expect so.
Just a few extra problems on the snagging list.
MBQ
That's a big weight of concrete. Would you have to put in foundations for it?
When I first looked at the photos, I hadn't realised that the river was not there originally. The whole channel is just from erosion in a few months.
Still not seeing any pipes in Google Maps within a browser, I would have thought they all used the same source data.
install a new culvert :)
Yes, indeed. But if the straws had reasonable bending stiffness, and were anchored in something solid rather than just (say) standing on a tray, the weight would be less likely to fall over.
We don't know how much of the piles is still supported in firm ground below the exposed part. If there is a reasonable amount, might it not be possible to rescue the situation by fixing some cross-bracing to the exposed piles, and then back-filling?
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