Fracture of Prefabricated Slab in a House in Chongqing

In 2024, two accidents related to the fracture of prefabricated slabs in houses occurred in Chongqing, resulting in different casualties.

First Accident

At around 12:00 noon on April 11, 2024, a prefabricated slab in a house in Fengshou Community, Guanba Town, Zhong County, Chongqing, fractured. The accident took place in a three-story prefabricated slab house, with the ground floor used as a mahjong parlor and the second floor as a goods warehouse. That noon, due to the temporary stacking load on the second-floor slab exceeding its bearing capacity, the slab underwent brittle fracture and fell. This accident had severe consequences, resulting in 2 deaths and 3 injuries. This indicates that prefabricated slabs are highly prone to fracture when subjected to loads exceeding their designed bearing capacity, especially in cases of temporary stacking of heavy objects where the load distribution is uneven and concentrated, causing excessive local stress on the prefabricated slab that exceeds the strength limit of its material, thus triggering fracture.

Second Accident

At around 7:56 a.m. on May 22, 2024, a collapse accident occurred during the chiseling and cleaning of the second-floor prefabricated slab floor cushion in a dilapidated house renovation project at No. 129 Dongquan Zheng Street, Dongwenquan Town, Banan District, Chongqing. This accident resulted in 1 death and 3 injuries. The direct cause of the accident was improper demolition sequence. During the renovation work, an unreasonable demolition sequence may have disrupted the overall stability of the prefabricated slab structure, leading to local force imbalance and subsequent collapse. The indirect cause was the inadequate implementation of the enterprise's main responsibility for work safety, reflecting that in the process of house renovation construction, if enterprises fail to strictly fulfill their work safety responsibilities and lack effective management and supervision over the construction process, safety accidents are likely to occur.

These two accidents highlight the safety issues of prefabricated slabs in houses during use and renovation. For houses in normal use, it is necessary to avoid overloading heavy objects on prefabricated slabs; during construction activities such as house renovation, operations must be carried out strictly in accordance with regulations, and enterprises should effectively implement their main responsibility for work safety to ensure construction safety.