Sudden Complete Collapse of Zumrut Apartment Building and the Causes

In recent years, buildings and structures in Turkey have frequently failed or suddenly sustained damage because of their own weight or other loads. The most dramatic failure was the Zumrut Apartment Building disaster: a 9-story RC building in Konya that collapsed on February 2, 2004, leaving 92 people dead. This study will investigate the cause of the building damage and failure. The significant mistakes made during the design and construction of the building will also be considered. This study was divided into three sections: site investigation, analytical study, and experimental study. The evaluation of the building failure relating to the vertical load-bearing members will be presented using observations from the site investigations, the test results obtained from specimens taken from the failed building, and the findings of an analytical study involving modeling the building using the finite-element method.