Bangkok building collapse: Debris clearance could take up to two months

Clearing the debris from the collapsed 32-storey tower in Thailand on March 28 could take between 30 and 60 days.

Experts estimate that removing the 40,000 tonnes of rubble left behind after the destruction of the 30-storey structure will require at least a month, Caliber.Az reports, citing Thai media.

Bangkok Governor Chadchart Sittipunt stated that overnight search and rescue efforts had focused on an area where signs of life had been detected.

“We heard noises that appeared to indicate survivors. However, as soon as we began digging deeper, concrete slabs blocked access. By midnight, we concluded that we had no way to proceed further,” he said.

Note that, a high-rise building under construction in Bangkok, set to house Thailand’s State Audit Office, collapsed on March 29, 2025 following a magnitude-7.7 earthquake in Myanmar. The building was part of a joint venture between China Railway Number 10 Limited, a subsidiary of the state-owned China Railway Group, and Thailand’s Italian-Thai Development Public Company Limited.

Following the collapse, Chinese authorities censored online discussions related to the incident. Searches for keywords such as "Bangkok" and "tower" on Chinese social media platforms yielded limited results, while reports from state media outlets, including Xinhua, were removed. China Railway Number 10 also deleted social media posts celebrating the project’s progress.

The collapsed building was the only high-rise in the area to suffer total structural failure, raising concerns about construction quality. Some experts have compared the incident to China's so-called "tofu construction" failures, where poor building standards contributed to collapses during the 2008 Sichuan earthquake. However, official investigations are ongoing to determine the exact cause.

Thai authorities have launched multiple investigations into the incident. Scrutiny intensified after four Chinese employees were caught removing documents from the disaster site. The individuals received suspended sentences of one month in prison for violating disaster zone laws.

By Aghakazim Guliyev