A school building tilted in Bangladesh. Construction continued after it was lifted with a crane

An under-construction school building has tilted in Khulna, but the contractor has continued the work after lifting the leant parts with a crane and using sand and concrete for support.

M/S Rohit Enterprise is completing the project of Palli Sree High School at Mandartala in Dumuria Upazila at the cost of Tk 29 million.  

Headmaster Prabhas Mandal alleged irregularities from the beginning of the construction have put the four-storey academic building at risk of collapse.

“After the contractor started the piling work without a soil test, the machine bent and went deep into the ground. They brought a crane to lift the piling machine. The construction work was stopped for about five months for this reason,” Prabhas said.  

“When the third floor was done, the building went six inches deep into the ground and tilted northwards. The contractor then put sand and concrete under the building by lifting it with a crane. Then the fourth-floor roof was cast,” he said.

Construction workers were doing their work on the tilted building on Monday.

Contractor Tipu Hawladar claimed the tilting occurred because the school authorities did not allow constructing the building at the designated place.

“So we had to construct it after filling up a pond. The backside of the building tilted a little while constructing.”

The headmaster admitted that the building was not constructed at the designated place.

He said, "The building could have been built at a place in front of the current space. But we chose a place to the south of the school due to power cables. The contractor started the work by filling the pond with sand.”

Md Mostafizur Rahman, the executive engineer of the Education Engineering Department in Khulna, claimed he was unaware of the issue. “Action will be taken if this is found to be true,” he said.