Dezeen Wire: the man whose company designed the CTV building in New Zealand that collapsed during an earthquake has admitted he was aware of problems with its design just five years after it was completed, and two decades before the deadly 2011 earthquake, reports the New Zealand Herald.
The Christchurch headquarters of Canterbury Television collapsed during the February 2011 earthquake, killing 115 people. Now Alan Reay, the principal of Alan Reay Consultants, has told an inquest that he had known about problems in the building's structure following an inspection in 1991.
He admitted that the building needed drag bars installed to support its horizontal floors, but said he would not have called for a full inspection even after identifying the structural weaknesses.
Reay placed the blame on his engineer David Harding, who headed the project. "This situation arose because of the trust I placed in what I understood to be a competent and appropriately experienced engineer,' he told the inquest. The Royal Commission will present its findings to New Zealand's Governor-General in November.
See more stories about New Zealand »