AMMAN — Following Tuesday’s collapse of a building in
Amman’s Jabal Luweibdeh, Omar Al-Faouri, the neighborhood’s nominal head
(mukhtar) said that “in addition to the fact that the affected building was
truly an old one, internal remodeling works were taking place on the ground
floor, which may be the cause of the collapse”.
اضافة اعلان
The four-floor
residential building in this middle-class neighborhood collapsed, killing nine people, so far, and wounding eight others, officials said. Rescue work
continued on Wednesday to find an unspecified number of trapped residents.
Faouri said that
he had never received complaints about the state of the old buildings in the
area, adding that “Luweibdeh’s residents always seek to keep the beauty of the
area’s old-fashioned building style without conducting any major works that
might harm the infrastructure”.
Yet, according
to Faouri, people are given permits to build new buildings or add floors to old
building, and “maintenance works are done only by those who can afford them,
since there are no bodies that can fund such works.”
Bashar Tarawneh,
member of the Jordan Engineers Association (JEA) Council, and head of the civil
engineering division, told Jordan News that “licensing the construction
of any building, or changing elements in an existing building requires a study
and design by an engineering office, which in turn refers them to the JEA for
approval”.
“Unfortunately,
people sometimes act on their own, and effect changes and maintenance inside
buildings without consulting an engineering office,” he noted.
Tarawneh added
that “following Jabal Al-Jofeh’s building collapse in 2017, the Department of
Statistics issued a study that same year showing that around 20 percent of
buildings in Jordan have passed their projected lifespans, being more than 50
years old”.
“Some of these
buildings need rehabilitation, and some cannot sustain any additional
construction or even slight changes,” said Tarawneh,.
Tarawneh pointed
out that “JEA has raised the alarm and has been calling on the Greater Amman
Municipality and the Ministry of Local Administration since July 2021, to implement
such a project, as there was no real work implemented on the ground.”
Loay Al-Ramahi,
JEA association member and chairman of the Mines, Mining, Geological, and
Petroleum Division told Jordan News that “some buildings in Jabal
Luweibdeh and Jabal Al-Jofeh are more than 50 years old, some need urgent
maintenance, and some have undergone renovations without scientific studies”.
He emphasized
that “some people underestimate the risks of conducting changes randomly.”
“Constructing
new buildings near old buildings can put pressure on the infrastructure,
causing cracks and imbalances, and lead to further risks of collapse,” he
added.
Ramahi said that
“many old buildings lack appropriate sewage systems,” pointing out that a
building’s understructure becomes a “reservoir for rain and sewage water, which
causes cracks”.
He said that JEA
issued and circulated instructions to people regarding effecting changes to
buildings or doing any maintenance works “but to no avail”.
Shima Al-Tal,
cultural activist and Luweibdeh resident, told Jordan News that “in
2014, about 4,500 people in the area signed a petition and referred it to then
mayor of Amman Aqel Biltaji, asking him to push for a law to stop licensing new
buildings in the historic neighborhood, ban the demolition of old buildings,
and encourage their rehabilitation in order to maintain the infrastructure and
the privacy of the area.”
She said that
“none of the demands were answered until this moment,” stressing that
“Tuesday’s collapse is the result of the absence of real implementation of such
laws on the ground.”
Jordan News contacted Greater Amman Municipality’s spokesman
Nasser Rahamneh to ask him about the petition; he said he has no information
about the issue.
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