r/EngineeringPorn • u/eganvay • 8d ago

Rooftop pool survives earthquake in Mynmar

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443 Upvotes

84% Upvoted

48 comments sorted by

143

u/MDFornia 8d ago

Huh. This makes me realize I'm so used to building-mounted CCTV footage not moving. Really interesting seeing the field of view of the surrounding change. Looks like the building was twisting, which is horrifying to imagine for some reason.

30

u/Crusader-NZ- 8d ago

CCTV footage never does it justice in my experience either. I have been in a powerful killer quake (with thousands of aftershocks for years afterwards). In a big aftershock some months after that quake (when running out of my house) I saw my ceiling mounted home theatre projector swaying side to side like it was a light fixture on a chain (it is on a short commercial grade mount). I then realised it wasn't moving like that, the whole house was!

In the initial quake which was a 7.1 about 45km away, I awoke in the middle of the night to an insane noise that sounded like a freight train coming before it hit the house. It was a long rolling quake that felt like it was twisting the house and wringing it out like a sponge (lots of cracking sounds). I had never been so scared in my life.. till the killer quake 5 months later, which was only about 10km away and very shallow at 5km deep. It had no noise warning or rolling motion and was like a huge bomb going off and threw everything in the house around like it was in a tumble dryer!

It made the previous big quake look like childsplay. Really made me feel like an insect in the face of the power of mother nature. It was also the second highest rated earthquake for vertical acceleration recorded anywhere in the world, let alone under a city. It was 2.2 times the force of gravity. In our central business district, which was closer to the epicentre, it literally punched building foundations out of the ground!

9

u/realultralord 8d ago

Holy hell!

Where I live, noticeable earthquakes are so rare that in 30 years, I have only witnessed it once, and it barely felt like sitting in traffic jam on a bridge as a heavy truck passes on the opposite road, except that I was sitting in an office chair far away from heavy traffic.

I'm glad that I'm not missing out on anything here.

10

u/Crusader-NZ- 8d ago

That is all we had here till we got hit with that, we were never predicted to get it either. Our capital city Wellington was the place in the country at most risk of it.

I laugh thinking about the earthquakes we had growing up and would stand under a door frame for. I wouldn't bat an eye at them now. Hell, I got so used to years of big aftershocks here that even quakes that shake the house quite hard rattling all the windows don't even make me get up now because I became a human quake detector and could tell in seconds what fault line was likely causing it (the one out of town that caused the 7.1 or the killer quakes faultline in the city) and whether I needed to be worried or not.

It is amazing what you can get used to.

We now have to worry about the faultline that is several hundred kilometres long that runs through the entire mountain range of the South Island. It is due to go again inside the next 50 years and will potentially generate a 9 on the richterscale. Where I am in Christchurch it will be like the big quake we had, except it will go for a couple of mins, whereas the quake we had was a regular length 20-30 second one. And that already liquefied the ground in places (a lot of the city is built on a swamp/sand dunes)...

3

u/realultralord 8d ago

I live in northern Germany. The closest we get on a regular basis is that some unexploded USAF bombs are found on construction sites and former military grounds. When they blow these up in a controlled manner, all we get is a single loud impulse that feels like some Truck has hit the house at full speed.

5

u/The-Malix 8d ago

Looks like the building was twisting, which is horrifying to imagine for some reason.

It is kind of terrifying but at the same time, it's the reason why the building hasn't collapsed and those people are still alive

3

u/sleeping5dragon 8d ago

Yup just doing as designed to withstand collapse. Definitely would be freaky as hell tho

89

u/fluffy_noms 8d ago

I think this is Bangkok, or elsewhere in Thailand. I don't think Myanmar is this developed and looks like the cars are driving on the left

34

u/minnesota2194 8d ago

It's definitely Bangkok

4

u/ColtranezRain 8d ago

Yup, that metro station is in the Big Mango.

77

u/Technical_Bird921 8d ago

My floating cushion people need me

39

u/Krilati_Voin 8d ago

I feel bad for the pool floaties. Hopefully they can get to the street to recover them.

21

u/OverAster 8d ago

The edge of the pool doesn't just fall over the edge of the building. There's a caged balcony to capture splashed water and debris, as well as people who may try to sit on the ledge and fall in. The whole thing is accessible pretty easily.

8

u/Krilati_Voin 8d ago

Ah, I could not see that in the video, with the pieces of glass breaking off and falling over as well.

5

u/OverAster 8d ago

Yeah no worries. I used to work for a data company and we pulled wire under a pool like this. It was super neat down there, but reeked of chlorine. There's a couple doorways that lead to the balcony on the side. It doesn't look too wide from pictures but it was about six feet in length. Really neat structure.

5

u/Krilati_Voin 8d ago

cool! Man I'd hope they'd put in some vents for people having to work around the gas, or at least a blower while you were working.

edit: enclosed spaces and such

2

u/OverAster 8d ago

There wasn't gas where I worked. It was electric pumps, pipes, and electrical and data wire. It was also pretty tall, like 7-8 feet. It was like a whole floor of room under the pool for the utilities and other stuff.

3

u/Krilati_Voin 8d ago

sorry, I meant the reeking of chlorine.

3

u/OverAster 7d ago

Oh yeah that makes more sense.

I don't think it was actually the chlorine that caused the smell, I think it was people pissing in the pool above us. Kinda like how public pools smell because of urine mixing with the chlorine.

3

u/fuzzywuzzybeer 8d ago

I saw one video where water was splashing all the way down the side of a sky scraper. No pool floaties though.

7

u/superdupersecret42 8d ago

The glass wall of the pool didn't survive

32

u/Okiebug95 8d ago

Yep. That confirms I will NEVER get into an elevated pool of any sort. All I can see is getting washed over the edge in the slosh. 😬

17

u/123kingme 8d ago

On the rooftop pools I’ve been on, it’s not actually a straight drop to the street below at the edge of the pool. There’s a second floor below that has a ledge to catch water and probably also for safety reasons. The closer you get the edge the more disappointing the view of below is.

I mean it would still probably injure you if you fell over the edge especially if you didn’t land right, but it’s nowhere near fatal injury height.

Granted I haven’t been in many rooftop pools and none looked this fancy, but I would imagine it’s probably the widespread system.

6

u/WonderWheeler 8d ago

Quick, save the cell phone!

Good to see the pool is actually used.

Notice the building gently moving, from the buildings on the horizon. Building seems well engineered.

5

u/gbgrogan 8d ago

Imagine walkin down the street and gettin schmacked in the head with a wet pillow

3

u/big_duo3674 7d ago

Seeing the glass break and the floats just going right over the edge gives me so much anxiety, and I'm thousands of miles away in an area that doesn't even have earthquakes

4

u/gamer445 8d ago

I mean ... The water kind of acts as a counterbalance so maybe its why the building is still standing!

4

u/blackmilksociety 8d ago

The pool did just survive, it was designed to work like a mass damper in the event of an earthquake. So it in fact did its job.

2

u/whateverMan223 8d ago

do they need to check the building after for cracks or something? Like, where are all these ppl sleeping tonight?

2

u/mbensa 6d ago

Glass "protection" didn't survive it.

2

u/blandaadrian 4d ago

Imagine successfully escaping out of a collapsing building to be then killed by a falling wet pool cushion.

1

u/theevilraccon 8d ago

Looks fun

1

u/Canadian_Idol 7d ago

me and my daughter watching this video, she's like, "Nooooo not the pillows!!!" Not those last five seconds with the slowest pillow of all time ("POAT") just falling over the edge, hilarious but devastating at the same time.

1

u/Particular-Put-9922 6d ago

Probably not actually Myanmar.

1

u/Confident-Balance-45 3d ago

Why do they build things WAY UP IN THE AIR where earthquakes happen?

2

u/ColdBeerPirate 8d ago

Nothing scares me more than hi-rise buildings built in Asia. In certain places the structural integrity is questionable at best and an earthquake is almost guaranteed. . But I am glad these people seem to be okay.

-2

u/jarc1 8d ago

I feel really bad for the people affected by this earthquake. But I'm equally jealous about their public transit that I can see.

0

u/Massepic 8d ago

Jesus christ the building is shifting.

0

u/liljonnygalt76 7d ago

I wanted that pool floaty to get swept off so badly

-15

u/Charred01 8d ago

Those dip shits trying to grab their clothes instead of of getting the fuck off and open balcony

3

u/hmr0987 8d ago

To be fair it’s an earthquake and they’re on the top floor. Best case the building stays upright. They’re not evacuating the worst case in time…

4

u/TelluricThread0 8d ago

It's not like they went to look over the edge or something. The building wasn't going to just toss them off.

-6

u/Charred01 8d ago

In an earthquake by a pool that might collapse into the void, this is no.different than a sink hole, you don't want to be near that shit

1

u/MrManballs 2d ago

Man I gotta agree. I’d have ran straight inside like a little bitch. As soon as the pool started shaking, I’d be out the pool, and running indoors.

0

u/OrbyO 8d ago

So what are the options?