According to the buzz on Twitter – niubi – it appears as if a more accurate assessment of the CCTV fire, which destroyed the Television Cultural Center (TVCC), has been reported on Caijing.com.cn magazine (subscription-based in Chinese, not English). According to niubi, who is a wealth of information on all things China, “1 bldg structurally toast 2. insurance won’t pay, “official” event 3. cctv chief retirement imminent” none of which is a surprise. I have been holding out hope that the structure would somehow miraculously survive, but there goes that thimbleful of warm fuzzies. The numbers are also rolling in on the overall cost of the project, courtesy again of niubi: “… new CCTV complex 2 date 12B+ RMB, + 7B+RMB for equipping. USD 3B+ …”
If it were any organization other than CCTV, I might be able to drum up a modicum of pathos, but I can’t help but feel that it couldn’t have happened to a more suitable group, the overbearing symbol of Big Brotherhooded arrogance, cultural dilution and rot. Now we can add “pathologic stupidity” to the list of modifiers that will forever peg them for who they are.
So does this mean that the TVCC will be coming down? That’s still specualtion – niubi is also asking the same question I’ve been asking myself for the last three weeks: Is the TVCC a counterweight to its more flash/less fire tipsy partner, the CCTV Headquarters Bldg? A good question. And one of these days there may be a good answer. Caijing is doing a good job of providing timely answers, despite the official unpopularity of the truth in all these reports and numbers.
The best page I’ve found on the CCTV fire is here at Caijing. It includes a a good illustration of how/where the fire at the TVCC Tower started and how it developed into such a memorable inferno on the night of February 9, 2009.
2 responses so far ↓
1 dwain // Mar 6, 2009 at 2:54 am
Jim, i haven’t been following this story as closely as you have, and i am no expert on fires. But there is no way in hell that plain fireworks “burned” through a sheet of titanium. When i worked at Nordam aircraft in the 70′s we used heat guns to delaminate titanium covered airframe parts(aluminum too), you had to heat the crap out of titanium to even get it hot enough to release from the inner seals, and you couldn’t burn it to save your ass(“The relatively high melting point (over 1,649 °C or 3,000 °F) makes it useful as a refractory metal.”). Unless someone was dumping pure oxygen or pouring chlorine down the sides of the building…or maybe useing phosphorus fireworks…i can’t see how it is possible that mere fireworks burned through that sheeting. Once you do get it lit, it is hell to put out though and it stinks to high heaven when burning. I can of course be way off base here but no way in hell that explanation washes for me, somethin smells funny and it ain’t titanium burning.
dwain
2 Jim Gourley // Mar 6, 2009 at 4:55 am
There’s a lot of talk about “tranference” Dwain, titanium heating up and the insulation burning beneath. There is still much to come out on this, though whether it will or not is another question. But whatever caused the fire – and I am very disappointed that this building burned, since I’ve grown quite attached to it as the step-child of the more popular leaning towers – it is clear that CCTV is responsible for burning down their own building. (It is hard to really explain just how loathful those folks are.) In the world of metaphors, it doesn’t get any better. This is Ahab sinking the Pequod without the least sighting of Moby, a kind of “Screw it! Pull the plug!” just for the hell of it.
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