GEC alumni team counters ‘misleading reports' on collapsed building
Against the backdrop of the recent collapse of a commercial building in the city, a group of alumni from the Government Engineering College (GEC), Thrissur, has come forward with a fact-finding report to counter what it termed as 'misleading and damaging' information that wrongly implicated the college's structural engineering experts.
Several reports had suggested that the collapsed building had received a structural safety certificate from the GEC's Civil Engineering department, but documents and inspection records reviewed by the alumni reveal this claim as incorrect.
According to the team, the building had in fact been declared unsafe by a faculty member from the GEC on August 17, 2024 following a site inspection conducted in response to a request from the Thrissur Corporation.
The inspection was triggered by an incident the previous day, when glass panels from the first floor of the building shattered and fell, prompting the corporation to issue a formal letter requesting an urgent assessment.
The inspection report clearly stated that the building was not structurally sound, with supporting technical reasoning. Furthermore, on September 28, during a visit by a court-appointed advocate commission— based on a Kerala High Court order dated September 12 —the same GEC faculty member reiterated in person that the building was unsafe.
The team said the reports mistakenly referred to a safety certificate issued for the adjacent building that had been certified as safe on November 11. It was this certificate that had been misrepresented in public discourse.
The Government Engineering College, Thrissur, has long been authorised under the Kerala Building Rules to carry out structural assessments. Faculty members from the Civil Engineering department, especially those with postgraduate specialisation in structural engineering, have regularly served on expert panels formed by municipal bodies and even the Kerala High Court, the report says.
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