A six-story building collapsed and killed 115 people in last year's New Zealand earthquake was made of weak columns and concrete did not meet standards when it was built,the government said Thursday. The Canterbury Television (CTV) building fell into a smoldering heap when the magnitude-6.1 earthquake shook Christchurch on Feb22,2011 and its collapse accounted for 184 victims. The building's designer contested the findings and said the report itself was technically inadequate. New Zealand's Department of Building and Housing concluded that the CTV building didn't meet minimum requirements when it was built in 1986 _ and would fall far short of the latest standards. The report is the first to find construction flaws in a building that collapsed during the earthquake. Investigations into other buildings that at least partially failed found all were built to code requirements but failed due to the intensity of the quake. New Zealand police cited they are considering to launch a criminal investigation based on the report's findings. Assistant police commissioner Malcolm Burgess told reporters there is a high threshold to establish criminal liability in such cases. In its report,the building department concluded that load-bearing concrete columns were reinforced with insufficient steel,making them brittle,and that the columns' asymmetrical layout made the building twist during the quake,placing extra strain on those columns. Tests after the collapse also found the concrete in load-bearing columns were significantly weaker than expected. Eyewitnesses spoken to as part of the investigation saw the building sway and twist violently. One described the whole exterior exploding,the cladding falling and columns breaking. However,Alan Reay Consultants,which carried out the building's initial structural design,disagreed with the report. ''Personally I feel incredibly torn,'' Alan Reay,the company's director,said in a statement,issued immediately after the report came out.''I have huge empathy for the families waiting for answers,but these reports are technically inadequate . Some of the assumptions made in the reports are highly questionable.''
