Off Topic Whoops - Homes evacuated as Chelsea town houses collapse

Homes were evacuated after two neighbouring four-storey town houses collapsed in west London.
Emergency services were called to Durham Place in Chelsea at 23:35 GMT on Monday where the buildings, which were being redeveloped, had fallen in.
A 25m (82ft) cordon was put in place and about 40 people were told to leave nearby properties while drone teams and police dogs searched the rubble.
No injuries have been reported, London Fire Brigade said.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-54794723

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It used to look like this:

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Sounds like a real bit of Barney Rubble ....

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One sold for 16 million last year .

So a bit of a "come down"

Talk about falling prices

 

Aye they’ve collapsed.

 

Wonder if the neighbours houses have increased in value now they're detached ?

 

I heard it’s left a big black hole in their building account

 

According to the weather the value should go up cos they are going to have an indoor swimming pool aswell

 

The sky's the limit.

 

the sequel to "made in Chelsea" ?

Demolished in Chelsea.

 

Those developers better have been insured

 

being redeveloped ? what the hell have they been doing, i bet they took the RSJ's/supporting walls away without supporting the floors or did they use timber, remember O Rielly !.

 

Wonder if planning had refused a particular aspect of the redevelopment and this 'accident has made it easier to do.

 

My guess is that they were escavating below foundation level for a pool/gym in the basement - oops

 

Ive heard this does happen quite often when they are building these underground rooms.

 

I'm guessing with it being a basement dig out whatever they've done to support the suporting walls has gave up. Not sure whether it would be timber or strong boys and acrow's they've used but it certainly hasn't worked properly. Might even be the case that the ground has given out underneath the supports. Bit surprising as it's a canny common property upgrade in that there London and building collapses generally don't happen.

 

well i am a qualified joiner and done building at college, something strange there though, but is something dodgy in the foundations fair enough.

 

Yeah - two of the terraced properties were being combined into a single home with a new basement below.
Obviously didn't have the right supports in place.

 

You can see the building has collapsed inwards, or more accurately pulled itself down into the basement as there's very little wreckage on the street. Only time I've worked on a job with two buildings knocked into one had a massive amount of new steel to take the place of the dividing wall and didn't have a basement to contend with. At a guess I'd say the ground has given way under the supports rather than the supports themselves giving way due to the basement excavations. Lucky it happened while no-one was working in it mind.

 

Fawlty Towers, classic.