Stomach-churning footage has emerged of the moment an under-construction flyover bridge collapsed, causing utter carnage in the Indian city of Kolkata.
MEANWHILE….IN INDIA
Stomach-churning footage has emerged of the moment an under-construction flyover bridge collapsed, causing utter carnage in the Indian city of Kolkata.
Sikh-ening, indeed….On an educational point, after trying and failing to find Kolkata in my (obviously) outdated Atlas I discovered that it is/was actually Calcutta. They changed the name to Kolkata. When? 2001 Damn I’m a dumbass.
India = hell on earth.
Brought to you from the country where half the nation lacks toilets and does their business outside anywhere, and the other half use squat toilets.
http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=squat+toilets+in+india&qpvt=squat+toilets+in+india&qpvt=squat+toilets+in+india&FORM=IGRE
Bob.
Ditto Africa esp some beaches.
Did anyone notice it came down at free-fall speed? That’s absolute indisputable proof that nano-thermite was used.
Yeah we need more H1-B people doing that kind of work in this country.
What a horrific tragedy. Black hole of Calcutta for 21st century under that rubble. God bless the poor souls who were squashed like bugs.
Yes it’s easy to poke fun at third world countries but you really have to be lacking all empathy for fellow man to find humor in such a disaster. I suspect no one crushed or injured was personally involved in the design, construction or maintenance of that.
Plus we’ve had bridge collapses right here in good old land of the free and I am sure many more are to come in this economy.
I will not be visiting India any time ever.
Whenever I see pictures of those crowded Indian cities in conjunction with knowing their bathroom habits I never, ever want to experience the funkadelic aroma that must pervade the air there. Having said that though, the few Indian people that I know personally are hard workers, do not sign up for free shit and seem like fine upstanding people who take pride in being/becoming Americans. They speak english,take care of their own and mind their business. You can’t ask for much more than that.
Engineering isn’t the art of making things strong.
Any idiot can make something strong.
Engineering is the art of making something as weak as it possibly can be and still being able to do the job asked of it. The balance between cost and strength.
Yes, there’s a bunch of stuff about ‘elegance’ in there – having 1 widget do 6 things instead of 6 widgets doing 1 thing each – and throw in a tasteful artistic flair and some genuine miracles can be built…
But I also find that corruption plays a big part. Haji’s Construction Company puts in the “winning bid” because the guy who approves projects has a sister who is married to Haji’s brother – he can funnel state funds to a family member indirectly. If they skimp on building materials, everything left over is gravy. Pay off the “inspector” with a portion of what you save on building materials, and nobody is the wiser…
That is, until whatever it is you’re building falls down and crushes dozens of people like insects…
“Hard working”… “proud to be Americans”…
Yeah… fuck them. The culture of graft, payoffs, corruption, etc, is what we’re importing… not proto-Americans… baksheesh…
One of my first engineering professors told me bluntly that it isn’t every engineer’s dream to build some great monumental construction with their name on it forever….
The main goal of every engineer is to make it to retirement without being directly responsible for a major catastrophe. True shit.