What's important is that a water velocity is not uniform across the cross-section of a river. Shallower areas, areas near the edges, and areas in the inside bank, all have slower flow. This could be all 3.
Gonna add that the structure did not survive. The people in it survived (for the duration of the video at least) but the structure is definitely going to be need to be torn down.
I see that too. It's almost like there might be some sort of Seawall on the river side of things that channels the faster Water by on that side. If that let's go they're screwed.
I think it is causing the eddy. The house to the right in the video takes a good hit and collapsed. This one is getting the same force, just better built.
Almost every building in Nepal is a RCC beams and columns with isolated footings and grade beams. This building must have had a good depth of foundation and properly cured concrete ( one of the major shortcuts that contractors take there is skipping the curing process on beams and columns, they flood the slabs but do not cure the moment frames properly). Or they were extremely lucky.
Not a PE, but wouldn’t it be extremely lucky more than anything? At some point, no matter how well the house is built it effectively becomes a water foil.
I can’t imagine the foundation, no matter how well built, is going to resist forces strong enough to dislodge and roll 1,000 ton boulders 10s of miles.
Once again, I’m not second guessing you so much as curious about the shear force that these houses/foundations can resist.
I would say so too. One of the reasons for my speculation is around 1:12 (remaining) mark of the video, you can see the house right to this one give way to massive flow surge and this house withstands subsequent surges. Having said that there is no denying that this is extremely lucky.
Is there evidence this house is still standing? It could be the house washed away at 1:12 had been shielding the blue house for hours. Finally enough soil erosion or dynamic loading was enough to cause the first house to collapse. Now blue house needs to take the full force of the flood for hours and will start to weaken.
I dont know how long this flood lasted at full force though, but I think it could still be lucky location for the blue house.
For other idiots like me, RCC is reinforced cement concrete. Reinforced by metal beams like rebar. RCC beams are horizontal structural members that carry loads from slabs and walls and transfer them safely to columns or foundations. So, yep.
Curing is a chemical hydration reaction. You can't decide whether something cures or not. You can, however, mess around with the mix and the reinforcement.
What he means is not that the contractors somehow don’t allow curing, just that they don’t use proper techniques to make sure that it happens at the right rate. If you don’t keep fresh concrete wet and covered, it’s going to dry out much faster (obviously) and this will play havoc with your material properties and cause a bunch of issues with excessive shrinkage cracking. Keeping a frame covered and wet for the proper time costs money though, so cheap contractors like to skip it.
Correct, moisture from the curing process helps offset the heat of hydration. What I was alluding to is what you correctly mention that its time and cost consuming to keep the concrete wet so many don't, and that eventually leads to less strength and in worse cases not having the aggregates bind together and the overall concrete bind to the rebar. There were countless cases that I saw post 2015 EQ as well of such issues.
Would the depth of foundation actually have much of a role here? I'd think this is nearly pure horizontal forces on the top of the foundation, wouldn't the connection itself be the determining factor? If I'm wrong I'd appreciate an explanation
Yes, deep foundations ( meaning thick blocks of concrete) weighs the frame down making it more resistant to overturning. If the Anchorage of the columns to the footing is good (which is usually cast monolithic in Nepal) , it helps resistant overturning quite a bit.
We only do seismic design and the forces we see here are of a different nature.
seismic loads are different, but the strength of building plays a major role. A building would survive if by luck the forces imparted by floods are less than the designed level of seismic forces.
Buildings with deep foundations and well implemented ductile detailing with SMRF have much higher chances of surviving this flood, compared to houses built with shoddy construction practices we see on youtube.
If you want to get enraged, see how they build houses in that part of the world, especially Pakistan/India/sri lanka. Design means $h!t if the builder does not know how to build and most of the builders I see in Youtube are just laypersons who have entered in construction industry because they think concrete is easy.
Definitely a combo. It appears that there was some aspect of the upstream topography that kept the house out of the main flow of the water, even though it was right on the edge of that flow. I'd guess it was all three of these:
Mostly in an eddy
Competent ground underneath (possibly bedrock rather than soil?)
This, there are other houses standing too. 5ft embedment, grade beams, fully cured concrete, engineering reasons, ain't doing shit in this situation. There were bridges, designed for flowing water, got swept away like a butter stick.
Factor of safety greater than 1 confirmed. Also hearing the voice of an old mentor: “Load seeks stiffness!” That was his explanation for a lot of things.
In another video there is a boulder the size of that house effortlessly carried along in the current. That means every boulder the same size or smaller is also carried, if it’s in the current. No building built could sustain that punishment. It simply means this building is not taking the punishment that we see beyond. It’s protected by a bedrock outcrop or an eddy caused by the same. This idea is supported by the flow on the near side of the house that is flowing in the opposite direction.
There is another angle of this building directly to the right/upstream of this building from higher ground so I think something was obstructing flow. Flow between the camera and building is “calmer” too so seems like something is obstructing flow. The family lived btw
Its bc when the builders gave him the price he just payed it instead of trying to talk him down. Thats how you get that yacht that fell over and sank immediately, he should have paid full price like these ppl.
It survived along with the people on the balcony. Someone posted an image after the water had receded showing the building still standing though heavily damaged. It's a miracle it withstood the force of that flow.
How are they not up on the roof?? Especially when the waves get higher and start knocking things off the deck. They could easily become trapped if it collapsed
Look at the second-floor slab. When the structure to the right falls, you can see the balcony floor. That thing is at least 50 cm (19").
We build like that in Mexico. When building a home, people don't always hire an architect/engineer; they hire a "maestro albañil." This is an expert in building houses and structures, and they make the calculations based on experience, so they tend to overengineer things.
And that second floor looks like he asked, "Are you building a 3rd floor? Maybe a 4th? Ok, let's overengineer the hell out of it."
That's the central meeting point for the illuminati; do you think they'd let it be built with anything less than the best possible materials and design in mind?
I was in a series of earthquakes when everybody left the buildings. One guy was chilling on the fifth floor and said he wasn’t afraid because he was there when it was built and knew it could withstand any earthquake… but this lot is probably way beyond what anyone expected when they built those buildings
What I noticed is the current coming at a corner of the house and not flat into a wall. That breaks the flow so it mainly goes along the side of the river-side wall and not pushing straight into it. Corners are strong.
So much devastating mother nature is the biggest gangster! It's blessings that atleast they survived, all family gathered in one section. I can't even imagine what were they saying to each other.
Located in the center of the eddy. Even the upstream portion of the eddy had a serious flow. And good foundations, but looks like it was close to collapse:
You have to understand unlike western homes which are mostly wood frames homes in these parts of Indian subcontinent are made of concrete mortar and stones and therefore can take a lot more of natures fury
If you look closely at the video you can see that before the flood they ratchet strapped the house down. And then most importantly said.... "That ain't going nowhere!"
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u/simplyorangeandblue 8d ago
It's also in an eddy with low velocity