Police were called to the Hawkeswood Metal recycling plant at 8.45am today after a large concrete wall containing metal collapsed.

Paramedics tried to free the men, including one who had suffered a heart attack, however West Midlands Police pronounced all five victims dead at the scene.

A sixth man was taken to hospital with serious leg injuries.

The victims have yet to be identified. — globalconstructionreview.com

The Californian district attorney investigating a balcony collapse that killed six students – five Irish and one Irish American – and seriously injured seven others in June last year has said she will not be bringing manslaughter charges because a successful prosecution seems unlikely. — globalconstructionreview.com

As cranes have grown in height and girth, the controls to operate them have intensified in number and complexity...the crane units in use these days have libraries of intricate manuals, packed with details...some operators may not have time to fully understand or read completely. Same goes for the maintenance team. When something does go wrong with such large machines...the 'mess and carnage' gets magnified. — Popular Mechanics

Three Taiwanese construction company executives have been detained on charges of professional negligence resulting in death following the collapse of an apartment building that killed dozens.

The district prosecutor's office in the city of Tainan said [...] that Lin Ming-hui and architects Chang Kui-an and Cheng Chin-kui were suspected of having overseen shoddy construction of the 17-story Weiguan Golden Dragon building, which crashed onto its side following an earthquake Saturday. — america.aljazeera.com

Taiwan's Government has ordered an investigation into the collapse of a high-rise building in an earthquake after it emerged tin cans had been used in its construction.

Rescue workers found the cans as they searched for survivors two days after the 6.4-magnitude earthquake that has killed at least 37 people. — independent.co.uk

The Associated Press reported that the person killed was a Wall Street worker sitting in a parked car. [...]

The accident happened as workers were trying to secure the crane against winds around 20 mph by lowering the boom, which had been extended to as long as 565 feet the day before, officials said. Because the crane was being lowered, workers were directing pedestrians away from it on a street that otherwise would likely have been teeming with people. — npr.org

California apartments with commanding views of the Pacific are now in danger of collapsing into the ocean. 

Erosion blamed on El Niño rains is tearing away at the cliffs of Pacifica, just outside San Francisco. Drone footage shows how volatile the situation is, and how close to the literal edge some apartments are — huffingtonpost.com

The lawsuits make disturbing allegations that the balcony was poorly constructed, sustained dry rot to the point of growing mushrooms and officials at the apartment complex knew about the dangers, but failed to fix them. [...]

The lawsuits allege the builders cut corners to save money, that a subcontractor did not use plywood called for in the plans, but cheaper oriented strand board that is more susceptible to water damage and dry rot. — abc7news.com

At least 52 people were killed when a crane crashed in Mecca’s Grand Mosque on Friday, Saudi Arabia’s civil defence authority said on its Twitter account.It said 30 people were injured.

The Muslim annual Haj pilgrimage is due later this month and Saudi authorities go to great lengths to be prepared for the millions of Muslims who converge on Mecca. — theguardian.com

In a report released a week after the incident, officials with Berkeley’s Building and Safety Division confirmed suspicions that dry rot had deteriorated the wood beams supporting the balcony. They also said they found no construction code violations. — latimes.com

Berkeley city officials have shut down access to public records regarding the construction of the apartment complex, which was completed in January 2007. Normally, they would be viewable upon request, but zoning office staff cited a pending police investigation and a request by the Berkeley city manager that the records not be made immediately available. — LA Times

The police in Bangladesh filed formal murder charges on Monday against 41 people accused of involvement in the 2013 collapse of a building that housed several clothing factories, leaving more than 1,100 people dead in the worst disaster in garment industry history. — The New York Times

Architecture students at the University of Texas at San Antonio will have to go back to the drawing board in order to reconstruct their fallen class project in Travis Park.

Weather conditions and probably someone climbing on the sculpture, called “F2,” factored into the collapse of part of the structure Saturday night.

The 15-foot-tall, 40-foot-wide dome made of interlaced wood topped with white spikes has only been in the park since late May [...]. — mysanantonio.com

A $700,000 home was teetering over the edge of Texas' Lake Whitney — until officials set it on fire.

The home, which had been gradually crumbling into the lake for weeks, was set on fire shortly after 10 a.m. local time after authorities deemed it the safest and cheapest option. Officials had considered pulling the home closer to land using a giant net — deemed unsafe — or letting it fall into the lake on its own — too expensive to clean up. — mashable.com

The collapse of a five-story building in the city of Fenghua trapped at least six people, one of whom has died so far, according to state media (in Chinese). The apartment building was built in 1994—part of a nationwide boom in the 1980s and ‘90s that packed the Chinese real estate market with substandard, shoddily built buildings. Authorities are warning that the poor quality of buildings from the those decades could represent huge dangers in coming years. — qz.com