News Forum - Heavy rain and landslide cause villas at Koh Samui resort to collapse

[Thaiger]

Heavy rain and landslides caused several villas at a resort on Koh Samui to collapse on Saturday. Torrential rain over the past several days flooded several areas on the island and, according to weather reports, rain is expected to continue for the next few days. The landslide hit the Merit Resort Samui early Saturday morning. The resort’s general manager described how a total of 8 villas collapsed, and 3 others were damaged and are at risk of crumbling. The cause of the landslide is believed to be the construction of a road in the area, which may have led to […]

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[drkenchao]

i guess it is important not to live near river and sea/beach just in case of big flood (or tsunami back in 2003?), and live far away from high risk big flood zone (eg google search bangkok big flood map …)

[gummy]

1 minute ago, ken said:

i guess it is important not to live near river and sea/beach just in case of big flood (or tsunami back in 2003?), and live far away from high risk big flood zone (eg google search bangkok big flood map …)

Or simply have a proper geological survey done prior to building. Was this resort another one built without permission by chance ?

[Griff1315]

Villa? Or a Pink cow shed..

[Malc-Thai]

21 minutes ago, gummy said:

Or simply have a proper geological survey done prior to building. Was this resort another one built without permission by chance ?

I really don't know laws out here or certificates for any building work but I had some work done in kalasin and they were not the best .. I've seen some building work  where Myanmar wives mix concrete and pour into shuttering.. when the shuttering comes down many gaps that is then just rendered over.. without going deep enough with footings too.. no drainage to move water away etc etc..

[Griff1315]

2 minutes ago, Malc-Thai said:

I really don't know laws out here or certificates for any building work but I had some work done in kalasin and they were not the best .. I've seen some building work  where Myanmar wives mix concrete and pour into shuttering.. when the shuttering comes down many gaps that is then just rendered over.. without going deep enough with footings too.. no drainage to move water away etc etc..

Poor building standards followed by zero maintenance got to lead to trouble eventually..

[gummy]

3 minutes ago, Malc-Thai said:

I really don't know laws out here or certificates for any building work but I had some work done in kalasin and they were not the best .. I've seen some building work  where Myanmar wives mix concrete and pour into shuttering.. when the shuttering comes down many gaps that is then just rendered over.. without going deep enough with footings too.. no drainage to move water away etc etc..

Thailand have some great civil/structural engineers. They also have many cowboy builders who cut corners. That is why they need 100% supervision on anything significant.

[ThaiEyes]

Proper drainage, erosion control and perhaps more common sense might have prevented this. The rain wasn’t the cause, it was the spark that lit the match likely. 

[Jason]

Well...there you have it! Lot's of suggestions in the above comments. And some wise ones at that! We think about what is standard practice in our own countries and apply it to what we see here. Yet still things like this happen in every country. Even the best planning can succumb to natural disasters. The question is, do we build back better? Or do we just do what we did last time and hope it won't happen again. I live in a city that was built on a flood plain (just like Bangkok). It has been severely flooded three times in 100 years. Every time we say, it's a disaster! But what do we learn? Anyway...I won't be staying at that resort anytime soon. And yes when I first visited Phuket, I did check that my hotel was not effected by the Tsunami!

[drkenchao]

once i was in.vietnam on a train supposed to.go to a hiking area, after travelling on it to about midway, the train stopped moving as there was big flood! subsequently the flood water covered all the train and the ground floor of the train station building, i went with the train employees and train passengers went upstairs waiting for police.coming to rescue with small boats! we stayed there 4 days before escape! so as fas as possible, live farther away from big flood zones and river or sea! although tsunami not happen always