China Puts Right 28-Storey "Leaning Tower"

China's experts in architecture conducted a precision "operation" on a 100-meter high-rise, which towers high in the city center of Harbin with a severe tilt on one side and scored a success.

The experts say after a period of use and observation for one and half year, the condition of the high-rise indicates stable and normal. It is so far the highest tilted building, which has been put right successfully in China.

This 28-storey-building, called "Qilu", towers 96 meters high, which had a serious error in measurement due to technical negligence in building engineering. The examination indicates that the inclination of the building has reached 525 millimeters. The experts of Heilongjiang City Planning and Surveying Institute and Northern Jiaotong University in Beijing jointly conducted the operation for its correction and consolidation. After a 7-month work they have brought the building back onto its right position, reducing the tilting gap to 130 millimeters, much lower than the state-set criteria of 190 millimeters.

According to the experts, the major ways adopted for putting the building into the right position is by artificial forced sinking. They, sinking several shafts on the opposite direction, used high-pressured water current with its amount and direction under a strict control to shoot and wash out some horizontal holes under the major weight-bearing stratum of the foundation, and the mud, flowing into the shafts, was pumped out. In this way the building fell gradually back until the tilt was reduced to normal.

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