News from the International Association of Engineering Insurers
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IMIA NEWS nd 32 Issue - April 2016 News from the International Association of Engineering Insurers Hotel Fire in Dubai : up to two thirds of the buildings in Dubai are covered with aluminium composite panels (ACP) that are not fire rated. In this edition Nr. Topic Page 1 News from the Executive Committee 2 2 IMIA Annual Conference 2016 in Doha/Qatar 2 3 IMIA Training Courses March 2016 in Berlin and following courses 3 4 Learning from Losses 3 4.1 Hang Slide Santa Fe, D.F. México 4 4.2 Guatapé and the Power Industry in Columbia 5 4.3 Fire in a Dubai Hotel 6 4.4 Construction – Guajimalpa, México - failure of support and stone fall 7 4.5 Construction – Bridge Collapse in Kolcata, India 7 4.6 Crane collapse – hitting temporary structure in Guandong / China 8 4.7 Earthquake in Japan / Kyushu 9 5.0 Interesting Projects - Schilthornbahn Switzerland 10 1 1. News from the IMIA Executive Committee The last meeting of the IMIA Executive Committee took place on March 17th, 2016 in Berlin. The detailed Minutes of Meeting can be found on www.imia.com (login necessary). Preparations for the Annual Conference 2016 which is scheduled to take place Oct 1-5, 2016 in Doha/Qatar are well on track. The conference agenda was discussed and agreed, topics for the Panel Discussion on Tuesday Oct. 4th and for the next round of Working Groups as well were also fixed. Preparations for the Annual Conference 2017 (the 50th since IMIA’s foundation in 1967) in Munich are also well advanced. As of April 2016 membership fees are being invoiced, conference fees will be invoiced later and only based on the registration of delegates. For better transparency it was also decided to send friendly reminders to those who missed paying their membership fees. Membership may be suspended if no payment is received 20 days after a second friendly reminder. 2. IMIA Annual Conference 2016 in Doha, Qatar Our 49th Annual Conference is already under preparation. It will be hosted by Qatar General Insurance and Reinsurance Company, Qatar and will take place in the Kempinsky Hotel/Doha from Oct. 1st – 5th, 2016. Online registration is open to Members. There is a link to the hotel that offers a special rate for delegates of this conference and also to Qatar Airways who offer an attractive discount for delegates using their airline for this conference. There is also an interesting programme for partners accompanying delegates. 2 Local and Conference information is all on the IMIA website. For additional hotel information see http://www.kempinski.com/en/doha/marsa-malaz-kempinski-the-pearl-doha/overview/hotel- location/, but please note, room reservation must be done via the online registration (Attendance and Reservation Form) on the IMIA website. 3. IMIA Academy Training Course March 2016, Berlin For the fourth year, IMIA’s Engineering Insurance Training Course took place in Berlin from March 14 to 18, 2016. It aimed at employees of IMIA members with 2 to 5 years of experience in Engineering Insurance Lines. 28 students from 15 countries attended the five days course and proved their knowhow in a final examination on day 5. On day 3, the lecturers who were present and the IMIA Executive Committee, who had their regular EC meeting in the same hotel, had dinner together with all students and had the opportunity to know each other better. A diploma was handed out to all students achieving at least a score of 50 % in the final examination. For all interested persons, there will be another training course in November 2016 in Singapore. More information will follow, as well for another training course in March 2017 in Berlin. 4. Learning from Losses Form your own opinion: many losses are just known from the press and no details can be revealed as settlement may still be underway and confidentiality has to be observed. Nevertheless experienced underwriters may draw their own conclusions and also prefer to do further research on the internet. Some even set up their own database of losses. This is up to you. 3 4.1 Hang slide Santa Fe, D. F. México Would you like to live here? Would you invest your money in buying a flat? Would you underwrite the construction and the property ? At first glance the ground looks stable… At second glance there may be a few possible slip planes .. 4 And one which could raise suspicion and fear, so what happened was not quite unexpected: Would you now think that after the slide has occurred and the building is still there, we can now stay and live here and, as an underwriter, we can underwrite this risk, even at a lower rate? This is up to you and your personal risk perception. 4.2 Guatapé a. others - and power industry insurance in Columbia Around 70 percent of the country's energy is generated by hydro-electric plants. After a series of material damages to various power plants in Columbia (a devastating fire that crippled the 560MW Guatapé hydroelectric plant and affected two downstream hydro plants that depend on it /turbine damages to other plants etc.) there is a threat of serious blackouts. The supply was already under strain because of a severe El Niño-induced drought and a shortage of natural gas that forces most thermal power generators to use more costly and less efficient diesel. 5 About 11 percent of energy has been lost over 15 days because of the fire at Guatapé in Antioquia province, and other problems at plants. Meanwhile Hydro power plants only yield 30% due to el Niño, after the damage in Guatapé, Celsia followed, turbine damage occurred at the Termoflores plant in Barranquilla and finally now it is Termoguajira – this in a situation where El Nino reduces the output of hydro power plants to 30 % of their usual capacity. As a consequence the power supply in Columbia has become quite critical, with a remaining reserve margin of 1,2% (which is well below the internationally accepted reserve margins of between 5% and 10% of demand for electricity in a country ) the country is close to rationing and even to an outage; currently even energy must be imported from neighboring countries. http://thebogotapost.com/2016/03/11/balance-of-power/ 4.3 Fire in a Dubai hotel The Address hotel is Downtown Dubai, formerly Downtown Burj Dubai, and it is a 63-story, 302.2 m (991 ft) super-tall hotel and residential skyscraper in the Burj Dubai Development Area. At about 21:00h GST on December 31, 2015, a fire broke out on the 20th floor of the building. At the floor, where the fire is thought to have begun, residential suites are located. Strong winds caused the fire to spread quickly throughout the building, which was evacuated at around 21:45. The nearby Dubai Mall was also evacuated as a precaution. Explosions of unknown origin were heard as the fire spread to other parts of the building. Then debris fell from the building and dark plumes of smoke were seen emanating from the skyscraper. Image of the spectacular blaze at The Address Downtown Dubai hotel Underwriters will be aware that this is the fourth major skyscraper fire in Dubai in the past four years. In 2012, the 40-storey Al Tayer Tower went up in flames and later that year, the 37-storey 6 mixed-use Tamweel Tower in JLT suffered the same fate. The New Year’s Eve fire is the second in the past year. Earlier in 2015, the unfortunately named “Torch Tower” lived up to its name. In both of the 2012 fires, a specific building material was isolated as the main reason for the blazes. To insulate large buildings while keeping overall weight down, many skyscrapers have aluminum composite panels (ACPs). Some of the material in these panels has proved to be highly flammable. After the 2012 fires, these aluminum composite panels (ACPs) were outlawed for new buildings however according to a study by The National, up to two thirds of the buildings in Dubai are covered with aluminum composite panels (ACP) that are not fire rated. The tower is the 19th tallest building in Dubai. It is a tall structure within the massive development named Downtown Dubai, which includes the centrepiece super-tall building, the Burj Khalifa. The tower was topped out in April 2008, and was the sixth tallest building in Dubai at the time. The AED845 million tower was completed in September 2008. 4.4 Construction – excavation support failed and buried workmen Guajimalpa / México The buried workmen could be rescued https://twitter.com/luismiguelbaraa/status/628625752825552896/photo/1?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw 4.5 Bridge under Construction collapsed in Kolcata, India The construction for the 2.2 kilometre Vivekananda Flyover was contracted in 2008 and the work began in 2009, a construction firm based in Hyderabad, won the bid for the project. The construction was scheduled to be completed in 2010, but overshot the deadline multiple times. The company was given an 18-month deadline by Chief Minister of West Bengal, Mamata Banerjee to complete the flyover by February 2016 and allocated a budget of nearly ₹165 crore (US$25 million), but only about 60 percent of the work was completed. As of March 2015, it had a debt of ₹4055 crore (US$600 million) and reported losses of ₹672 crore (US$100 million). In December 2015, a consortium of banks, that had lent funds to the company, took over and the company had been banned from doing business in Uttar Pradesh and several other states.