Flat owners reject official test results on suspected substandard concrete
Flat owners in Shenzhen stage a fourth protest over claims that substandard concrete was used in the construction of Jiayu Garden
Hundreds of flat owners of Shenzhen's Jiayu Garden staged a fourth protest yesterday in Longgang district over suspicion that developers had used cheap sea sand in the concrete, despite a government statement assuring the flats they bought were safe.
The Shenzhen Housing and Construction Bureau released a statement on its official website yesterday saying six major property projects in the city, including Jiayu Garden and Ping An International Financial Centre, which at 660 metres will be the city's tallest building when completed, were safe and met national standards for concrete.
The sites were among 14 major projects across the city put on hold last week while local government officials tested concrete samples for traces of untreated sea sand after a national television exposé triggered concerns over building safety.
The bureau said in its statement that it would release the test results of the remaining eight projects over the coming week.
The government said its tests were based on the code for durability design of concrete structures, which the ministry of housing and urban-rural development introduced in 2008.
It said the Ping An samples contained 0.064 per cent chloride ions while Jiayu Garden's samples were 0.099 per cent, which the Shenzhen government said were within the code's limit of 0.3 per cent. But the announcement did not appease the protesters. Flat owners at Jiayu Garden collected concrete samples yesterday at the same place where they were taken by the bureau and sent them to Hong Kong for a third-party analysis.