Beijing is censoring references on China's internet to the skyscraper that collapsed in Bangkok, as the Chinese company involved in the project faces mounting scrutiny in Thailand.
The partially constructed tower, set to be the Thai government's State Audit Office, was the only high-rise building to completely crumble in Bangkok last Friday, after a magnitude-7.7 earthquake nearly 1,000 kilometres away in Myanmar shook the Thai capital.
China Railway Number 10 Limited, a subsidiary of China's state-owned China Railway Group, had hoped to use the joint-venture project — its first skyscraper project outside China — to promote its business in Thailand.
Instead, news of the building collapse has been censored on the internet in China, and searches for related keywords like "Bangkok" and "tower" on Chinese social media returned limited results.
Reports on the building collapse from Chinese state media outlet Xinhua, which spread to other Chinese news outlets, have also vanished.
China Railway Number 10 deleted all posts about the construction from its WeChat account.
However, fast-acting netizens took screenshots and archived one post, published last April, celebrating a construction milestone of the building, which the company ultimately wanted to use as a "business card" to promote its interests in Thailand.
University of Toronto Chinese politics professor Lynette Ong said the news was likely being censored in China to limit discussions that might be "embarrassing" to the state-owned construction company.
"Available information indicates that the Chinese-built building was the only one that collapsed in the neighbourhood of tall buildings," said Professor Ong.
"This has raised suspicion that construction might be shoddy, mirroring the 'tofu' construction in China, many of which collapsed during the 2008 Sichuan earthquake," she said, adding investigations were yet to establish if poor construction played a role in the collapse.
"Tofu construction" is a phrase used in China to refer to poorly constructed buildings or infrastructure projects.
The ABC attempted to contact Chinese social media companies, Weibo and Rednote, about the incident being censored but hadn't received a reply at time of publication.
'We have put our life on the line'
In Thailand, government authorities have launched multiple investigations in the wake of the collapse of the building, a joint venture between China Railway Number 10 and a Thai company, Italian-Thai Development Public Company Limited.
Attention on the companies also intensified this week after four Chinese employees were caught removing documents from the site after the disaster.
The men have already received suspended sentences of one month's jail for the crime of violating disaster zone laws.
The ABC made multiple attempts to contact China Railway Number 10 and its parent company the China Railway Group, and the Italian-Thai Development Company, but phone calls and emails were not answered.
Meanwhile, rescue workers continue to search for survivors in the rubble.
Many of the workers at the construction site were Burmese, including 32-year-old Thein Su.
Fifteen people have died and 72 remain missing and many families and friends have camped out or visited repeatedly in the hope of finding out what happened to their loved ones.
Thein Su’s brother, Burmese worker Win Ko, visited the site of the collapsed high-rise in the hope of garnering some information.
Win Ko hadn't received updates about his brother when he spoke to the ABC.
"When the collapse happened, we do not know whether our people are dead or alive or in which hospital they are admitted to," said Win Ko.
"It has been very difficult for us," he said, adding that Burmese migrant workers in Thailand face "massive challenges".
"We have put our life on the line and shed blood and sweat to work," he said.
At the same time, Win Ko has been watching online the devastation unfolding in his home country of Myanmar, where the death toll rose to 2,886, with 4,639 injured.
Collapse 'like the 9/11 event'
After the quake, Thailand authorities ordered safety inspections of about 11,000 private high-rise buildings.
Surveys of 3,375 government buildings nationwide found 34 with severe damage, authorities said on Wednesday.
Videos posted on social media showed other buildings in Bangkok shaking and breaking during the earthquake, and water from roof-top pools sloshing over glass barricades.
Soft soil conditions in Bangkok "definitely amplify ground shaking during earthquakes", said Tai Thai, a professor of structural engineering at the University of Melbourne.
But if a building was properly designed and constructed to withstand earthquakes, it would not collapse due to soil quality or earthquakes, he added.
The cause of the building collapse could be due to multiple factors like poor structural design, improper construction practices, and material defects, said Professor Thai.
Meanwhile, initial tests of materials gathered at the site in Bangkok indicated the presence of substandard steel among the wreckage of the 30-storey structure, according to industry ministry officials, who added that further analysis was required.
Videos of the building collapse showed the middle perimeter columns breaking first due to "horizontal forces" generated from the earthquake, said Professor Thai.
"This local failure has triggered the progressive collapse of the entire building that make it collapse very quickly like the 9/11 event in the US in 2021," he said.
"This comes from a poor design issue," he added.
Multiple Thai investigations underway
Wengui Li, from the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of New South Wales, agreed there could be several factors that together caused the high-rise collapse.
The construction of the tower could be an issue, he said.
"Whether the construction company strictly followed the rules and regulations could also be a reason behind the collapse," said Professor Li.
Thailand's government required buildings over 15 metres to comply with earthquake-resistant design standards from 2008.
But the regulations don't specify the magnitude of the earthquake that the buildings must be able to withstand.
Straight after the disaster, Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra ordered an investigation into the root cause of the building collapse.
That investigation is looking into the construction plan, the standard of the material used as well as possible unsafe actions during the construction of the building.
Han Zhinqiang, China's ambassador to Thailand, said on Sunday that China would cooperate in the investigation.
In recent days, Prime Minister Shinawatra also instructed various agencies to investigate all construction projects awarded to China Railway Number 10 in Thailand.
The country's Justice Minister Tawee Sodsong added the government would also investigate if China Railway Number 10 engaged in bidding collusion to secure the contract to build the State Audit Office building.
A committee has also been set up to check all the buildings that have the contracts with the China Railway Number 10 company in Thailand.
Additional reporting by Lauren Beldi
