Chinese Apartment Building Falls Over: Are governement regulations worth it?

I got an email from a friend at work showing a building fallen over on its side.

Of course, my spepical nature had me go to truthorfiction.com to check it out and it is indeed true:

http://www.truthorfiction.com/rumors/c/china-apartment-falls.htm

By the way, truthorfiction is the go to place to check out the accuracy of those forwarded emails with outrageous claims.

The 13 story apartment building located in Eastern Shanghai, China, collapsed at 5:30AM on June 27, 2009.

Here is a news report: http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/bizchina/2009-07/01/content_8342883.htm

(1) An underground garage was being dug on the south side of the building, to a depth of 4.6 meters (15 ft).

(2) The excavated dirt was being piled up on the north side of the building, to a height of 10 meters (32 ft).

(3) They dug right up to the base of the building. Then the rains came.

(4) The building experienced uneven lateral pressure from north to south.

(5) This resulted in a lateral pressure of 3,000 tonnes, which was greater than what the un-reinforced pilings could tolerate. Thus, the building toppled completely over in a southerly direction.