Why they dont immediately remove rubble from a building collapse when one occurs.
In: Engineering
Because you have to make sure that you’re not going to cause the rubble to settle by removing the debris in the wrong way. You may have people who are still alive in there, because the rubble fell in a way that they have a pocket of space where they’re safe. If you start taking out debris randomly, you might accidentally remove a piece that is actually supporting that void and keeping their pocket of space open, causing other material to crush them.
After the Oklahoma City bombing, it took 17 days to recover the bodies of all but three of the victims. The rest of the building was deemed too unstable and was slated for demolition. The demolition was delayed for a few weeks to give defense lawyers an opportunity to examine the wreckage. It was only after demolition that the big trucks came in to remove the debris and recover the remaining three bodies.
So we may have a similar situation in Florida, where the rest of the building will be demolished before removing the debris.
Put your hand on a big rock and then put another rock on top of it. The top rock may be heavy, but your hand is still okay. If you put more rocks on top of that, your hand has the ability to withstand a tremendous amount of weight. If you want your hand back, you want to carefully remove the rocks on top of your hand. If you try to pull your hand out from under the rocks, you’re going to do more damage.
Rubble isn’t able to be removed carefully, without risk, and without disruption of what’s below it. There may be survivors in small pockets or be trapped by pressure of rocks on top of them. Removing the rubble is like pulling your hand out…it can cause more damage. The best chance for victims is to find where they are and mindfully remove the rocks on top of them, without injuring or killing them in the process.
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