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A factual, fast paced, adrenalin-driven show featuring the biggest, strangest, and most jaw-dropping mishaps from the world of construction.
2026
When sinkholes collapse, so does everything on top. There’s a price to pay for not hiring a professional. A blazing fire destroys a residential tower and parked cars are suddenly crushed when the garage itself abruptly collapses. A Minneapolis bridge fractures and falls during evening rush hour, and bold, wacky designs translate into blueprints for the ridiculous. A newly built section in a Paris airport unexpectedly crumples and a newly built tower fails from a new technique. Finally, a 57 story high condo in downtown Manhattan is tall but not straight.
Within three months, two elevated highways in Bangkok gave way, both due to a hidden fault. In Uruguay, a bakery oven blast ignited a mall fire that burned for 48 hours despite active sprinklers. London’s skyline faced setbacks: the Walkie Talkie melted cars, a tower erupted in flames, and rooftop turbines sparked noise complaints. Colombia’s Chirajar bridge lost a tower during construction. North Carolina’s stilt homes vanish as seas rise. The 1928 Silver Bridge collapse, caused by a minor design flaw, claimed 46 lives. In Iowa, repeated repairs on the Davenport ended in its downfall.
The town of Surfside made headline news when a luxury condo shockingly collapsed. Roads with crumbling cliffs and hairpin turns, bring you close to danger and back. A popular club in coastal Mallorca caves in with no warning. When things go wrong with airplanes high up getting grounded is the goal. Italy has another leaning tower that might soon need critical care. Bricks forge cities but are still able to fail. A sea of molasses erupts in Boston city and destroys everything in its path. A brutal flash flood sweeps away two hydropower plants, revealing a new problem of building in the Himalayas.
As aftershocks from a massive quake reach Bangkok, towers sway, but only one collapses, exposing construction failures. In Copenhagen, the historic Børsen stock exchange burned despite fire protections. In the Bronx, a repair mistake brings down a six-story building. Leeds’ Bridgewater Place turned deadly when wind gusts lead to a fatal accident. In Berkeley, ignored warnings result in a balcony collapse. The Great Mill Disaster in Minneapolis sparked reforms. And mobile Cranes demand precision—one slip can mean disaster.
A design meant to preserve a Pittsburgh bridge leads to its collapse. Just one construction fumble can make a cozy home crash. Brazil’s new metro line build coincides with a sewage pipe rupture, and half-built skyscrapers keep turning into ghost-scrapers. An active volcano finally erupts causing staggering damage, while excess loads send truckers off road and off schedule. Snow tears apart a stadium roof and caves in a shopping mall rooftop. And a wave of porter beer leaves a tsunami of devastation. Finally a mega-billboard falls over and attracts the wrong kind of attention.
Cable cars in Pakistan stranded passengers above mountains, and in Turkey, a cable car saw some riders fall, while en route to a 620-meter peak. Why did these failures happen when cable cars are 10 times safer than cars? Two UK airport car park fires scorch thousands of cars. In Spain, flash floods hit Valencia, with preventable deaths. Romania’s new Braila Bridge cracked despite 6,000 tonnes of cables. In Serbia, a rail canopy collapsed, sparking protests. Boston’s Hancock Tower had shaky beginnings, going from bad to worse. The brains behind Britain's bike paths, gets bashed.
2022
A double telescopic crane collapse, a barge capsizing and a 187-ton bridge span all careening into a quiet residential Dutch neighborhood resulting in the total destruction of dozens of homes. The reason? A combination of wind, lack of balance and crane operator error.
In Asia, we witness a variety of construction site collapses: massive holes in the ground that implode in dramatic fashion, hurling retaining walls, roads and equipment dozens of meters below into a pit. Substandard soil conditions and reclaimed land seem to be the biggest reasons for these fails.
A look at the Notre Dame Cathedral fire in the spring of 2019. Infrastructure fail that contributed to making the fire much more devastating than it should have been. Why earthquakes destroy some buildings but not others.
We take a take a look at scaffolding, an integral piece of construction equipment. When it fails, the results can be catastrophic. But why does it fail? We examine the reasons through multiple examples.
Glass may be the most popular construction material in the modern age, but constructing with glass is challenging and dangerous. We investigate the effect of nickel sulfide inclusion on glass. Then, machines gone rogue, London's Grenfell Tower, and a double crane that collapses at the Caracas subway construction.
The vast majority of demolitions rely on the excavator to bring the building down. In this episode, we witness the perfect way to do it and contrast it with multiple examples of demolition by excavator fails. Operator error, unstable ground, unpredictable fall angles – we show it all.
Construction cranes are towers in the sky—except when they collapse. Learn about crane collapses in Seattle, Manhattan and Bangkok. Three disasters: three different reasons for collapse. Then, a look at the destruction from Typhoon Manghut.
The Artz Pedregal Mall in Mexico City had only been open a few months before the cantilevered section of the structure came crashing to the street below. How could a brand new building fail so dramatically? What’s so precarious about cantilever designs?
A look at destruction at New Orleans' Hard Rock Hotel. The catastrophe left two cranes precariously dangling from the structure. Also, why bricks and walls fail, a tower collapse in Fredericton, and a demolition gone wrong in Denmark.
The Big Dig in Boston was America’s most expensive infrastructure project ever. Delays and cost over-runs are legendary, but the collapse of the tunnel’s ceiling is an infamous example of how just a few extra dollars spent on the correct adhesive could have prevented a tragedy.
The proliferation of heavy, oftentimes overloaded, transport truck traffic in China is having unintended consequences: the collapse of multiple roads and highways. Then, building in a landslide-prone area.
We examine the crawler crane—the heavyweight champion of the construction industry. When things go wrong with this crane, it’s a catastrophe befitting the machine. And that’s what happened in Varese, Italy when a massive crawler crane installing a portion of a brand-new rail bridge toppled over. Was it the machine or operator failure?
We begin with an in-depth look at one of the most prolific materials in the world: the science of concrete. Why are so many of today’s concrete structures cracking and failing? Why are so many ancient concrete structures still standing when today’s crumble after only decades?
The Glasgow Tower in Scotland is the tallest fully rotating tower in the world, but few have ever seen it rotate. Fire, broken bearings, poor design and too much wind are just some of the reasons this structure has been branded an embarrassing white elephant on the banks of the River Clyde.
A look a the collapse of the Ponte Morandi (Morandi Bridge) in Genoa, 2018. Multiple camera angles capture the bridge crashing down in a rainstorm as vehicles drive across the iconic structure. Then, the long construction of Barcelona's Sagrada Familia.
The Millennium Tower was known as the most prestigious new condo tower in San Francisco. Now it’s known for something else: it’s sinking. It’s leaning, the concrete is cracking, the glass is blowing out of the windows. How could a luxury complex of multi-million dollar residences fail so soon after construction?
A container ship strikes the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, causing its catastrophic collapse and completely paralyzing the city's vital port.
Earthquake-proof buildings fall down in Turkey. Two gantry cranes bump into each other. A battery factory blows up, and a bridge collapses in Dresden.
A Philadelphia overpass catches fire; a radio telescope plummets, plus a sinking airport and Nigeria's collapse crisis.
Was the space shuttle Columbia an accident ready to happen? A Chinese bridge takes a deadly hit. A terrible mistake leads to a deadly stage collapse.
Lightning bolts cause construction mayhem, cities all over the world are sinking, cooling towers are collapsing, and India's bridges are falling down.
Fails include an Italian supermarket collapse, amusement parks ablaze, India's tunnel rescue, a light rail fail and a roofless stadium.
