Thailand’s Department of Special Investigation (DSI) has arrested Zhang Chuanling, an executive with a corporation called China Railway Number 10 Ltd., as part of a wide-ranging investigation into the collapse of a Chinese-built skyscraper during an earthquake in Bangkok in late March.
The 33-story administrative building was the only structure to collapse in Bangkok during the magnitude 7.7 earthquake that struck Myanmar and Thailand on March 28. The building, which was still under construction, came down in a matter of minutes, killing at least 47 people immediately and trapping dozens of construction workers in the debris. Forty-seven construction workers remain unaccounted for at press time.
Relations between Thailand and China immediately grew strained due to the collapse of the skyscraper, which was supposed to be an earthquake-resistant project. Thai police arrested four Chinese nationals who attempted to enter the ruined building and secure documents from the rubble two days after the collapse. The Thai government said Chinese personnel would not be allowed to enter the disaster site.
Thai investigators have focused their attention on two companies, China Railway Number 10 and Xin Ke Yuan Steel. The men arrested for pulling documents from the wrecked building were later identified as contractors working for China Railway Number 10.
Thai Industry Minister Akanat Promphan on Tuesday blasted Xin Ke Yuan Steel for failing product quality tests and for attempting to blame that failure on “substandard tools” employed in the testing.
The Chinese company also claimed none of its steel was used in the building that collapsed, a claim Akanat promised to thoroughly investigate.
“We’ve collected all the key data and evidence – computers, documents and servers – and we expect to uncover several crucial pieces of evidence,” the industry minister said.
Meanwhile, the DSI — which is essentially Thailand’s version of the FBI — arrested Zhang and is hunting for three Thai executives who also worked for China Railway Number 10, a subsidiary of the state-owned China Railway Engineering Corporation.
China Railway Number 10 formed a joint venture with Italian Thai Development PLC, a Thai company that handles jobs across Southeast Asia. The company is so named because its co-founder in 1958 was an Italian businessman.
The law in Thailand stipulates that foreign companies cannot hold more than a 49 percent stake in a joint venture, so foreign enterprises frequently seek out a Thai partner to hold the required majority stake in a project, even though the overseas company actually does most of the work.
Investigators charged this was the case with the joint venture to construct the doomed office building, accusing the three Thai executives of merely holding their shares on behalf of Chinese investors as “nominee shareholders” to circumvent Thailand’s Foreign Business Act of 1999.
“Separately, the Anti-Corruption Organization of Thailand (ACT) criticised Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra for providing vague and delayed responses following the collapse, while urging the PM to ensure transparency in the investigation,” the Bangkok Post reported on Monday.
Shinawatra has ordered an investigation of every project in Thailand linked to China Railway Number 10, which has at least a dozen other buildings under construction.
The leftist New York Times on Monday spoke with Bangkok construction workers who said the Chinese company was notorious for underpaying its contractors, “who turned to lower-quality materials and used columns narrower than usual.”
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