A 19-story residential building was urgently evacuated this Tuesday afternoon (13) in Praia Grande, on the coast of São Paulo, after three columns of the building showed structural damage, and was completely closed by the city hall.
The collapse of the column structure of the Giovannina Sarane Galavotti building, located at Avenida Jorge Hagge, 80, Aviação neighborhood, occurred at 1:56 pm, according to Praia Grande Civil Defense. There are no victims.
The building has a total of 23 floors, 19 of which contain housing units, and was handed over to residents in 2011. There are, in total, 133 apartments, according to Civil Defense.
The evacuation took a large number of onlookers to the avenue and generated fear not only among those who were in the building, but also among those who live or are staying during the long Carnival weekend in neighboring buildings. On social media, residents reported feeling tremors.
Praia Grande City Hall announced, early in the evening, the total closure of the building until the condominium presents a series of technical documentation.
“The condominium has already been notified by the city hall to present the documentation. From this stage onwards, the material will be analyzed by the City’s Department of Urban Planning and Civil Defense. The measure is necessary due to structural damage to three pilasters of the building”, he informed through of note to the administration.
Civil Defense classified what happened as shearing (deformation) of the columns underground. When detected, all apartments were evacuated and an emergency operation was activated.
A 30,000 liter water tank was emptied in order not to overload the building’s structure. This caused water to gush in front of the building, which is about 100 m from the beach.
Teams from the Urban Planning, Traffic, Public Security departments, as well as the Praia Grande Civil Defense, moved to the surroundings of the building, as well as three teams from the Fire Department and Military Police vehicles.
Technicians from the Urban Planning, Civil Defense and Fire Department departments spent most of the afternoon in the building carrying out an inspection and assessing the damage that had occurred.
Furthermore, the construction company responsible for the building carried out emergency work with the aim of stabilizing the columns — also so as not to overload the others. “The floors where the pilasters were damaged in the basement, ground floor, G1 and G2 were underpinned,” says the city hall.
In the coming days, according to Civil Defense, new inspections will be carried out to verify the final work.
So far it is not possible to identify what may have caused the structural damage to Giovannina Sarane Galavoti. There is also no prediction about a possible return of residents to their apartments.
In the early evening, the gradual and controlled entry of residents was allowed to remove personal belongings and pets that, by chance, had remained in the apartments. This entry is accompanied by firefighters.
The site has all the relevant documentation up to date with the city hall, according to the administration.