In designing the reconstruction of the railway station building in Novi Sad, where 14 people died two days ago when the canopy fell, and three are fighting for their lives, not a single structural engineer participated, reports Nova.rs.
According to the project documentation of the Traffic Institute CIP, which was released to the public, four architects were engaged in this study for "arrangement of interior spaces and internal installations of water supply and sewerage", while the main designer is "responsible designer of traffic roads". Two girls, sisters aged 5 and 9, are among the victims under the rubble.
Nova.rs writes that despite all the efforts of the authorities, Railway Infrastructure Serbia and the Chinese consortium CRIC CCCC, which carried out the works, to "wash their hands" of claims that the canopy was not part of the reconstruction, the hundreds of photos that flooded the networks prove that its construction and how manipulated. Shortly after the accident, photos appeared which, the media writes, unequivocally show not only the execution of the works, but also the tons of glass and iron that were added to the existing canopy. Bearing in mind that none of the signatories on the project is specialized in this kind of work, it was a question of the day when yesterday's tragedy would happen.
"I don't see any designer on this list with a 310 license, which is a construction engineer's license, and that's a problem. If they did anything in terms of construction, it is absolutely unacceptable that there is no calculation and that it was done without a construction engineer. For a woman which is signed as the main designer, I am not at all sure that she is allowed to sign this with her license 315, which is the responsible designer for roads and railways", says Andrijana Milovanović, a civil engineer for structures with decades of experience as a leading engineer.
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As she says, her colleagues have been witnessing the adaptation of regulations to investors for years.
"There are few of us structural engineers, and rarely will any of us make a compromise and sign something that is not necessary. When they realized that, ten years ago, they began to give the legal right to give such jobs and projects to people who do not know it, and who will sign and turn a blind eye to all this, to approve, it doesn't matter that they don't know about 50, 100, 1.000 euros... Our law, unfortunately, allows architects to do the calculations for some smaller buildings, but in this case you should ask those people who signed this project, which of you has the right to sign some static calculation," says Milovanović.
She adds that in the case of works on this canopy, despite the amendment of the law in favor of investors, only "constructors" had to be engaged.
"Regardless of the fact that they have given various rights to other engineers who are not educated for it, here we have hangers that are made exclusively by us, structural engineers. Not even half of us can do that because it involves very complicated calculations, very few people knows how to work, and in cases like this, when something like this is reconstructed, a construction engineer with a 310 license must be involved," explains Nova's interlocutor.
Given that among the signatories of the design engineer of the structure, Milovanović believes that it is shown in such a way that "there is no constructive work in it, but that it is a question of pure aesthetics".
"In this project, there is generally no Volume 2 from the regulations of the Law on Planning and Construction, which refers to the construction. That means it should have been some kind of adaptation without constructive changes. However, there is definitely something there," says Milovanović.
"The canopy wasn't actually dimensioned to carry anything structurally, given how it broke. It was actually 'hung', that is, 'suspended' from the roof and was supported by the roof overhang and hangers. It looks like suddenly there was a excessive force in all the cables in all places, or it is even more likely that the hangers were 'pulled out' because someone was working on the roof during the reconstruction", says Milovanović, emphasizing that she offers her services as an expert on the circumstances that led to this tragedy.
Given that all the work done by Chinese companies in Serbia is the most strictly guarded secret, from the project itself, the terms of the contract, crediting, the reconstruction project of the Railway Station is also unknown to this day. According to Naim Leo Beširi from the Institute for European Affairs, just a few hours after the tragedy, the CEOP platform of the Agency for Business Registers for electronic submission of requests was deleted and all relevant data on the approval of contractor works on the reconstruction of the Railway Station. While cranes and excavators were still unearthing the victims under the ruins, in parallel, texts and photos were systematically removed from the Internet, which, a few months ago, glorified the beauty of the "newly reconstructed canopy" at the Railway Station.
Fourteen people died in the tragedy in Novi Sad, while three more are fighting for their lives in the Clinical Center of Vojvodina.
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