Opposite of Tower 7: Chinese Skyscraper Engulfed in Flames Does Not Collapse Into Own Footprint

(by Matt Agorist | The Free Thought Project) – A fire engulfed a skyscraper in the central Chinese city of Changsha for two hours and it did not collapse.

On Friday, China was shocked when a major fire broke out in a 42-story skyscraper in the central Chinese city of Changsha in Hunan province. The building belonged to the country’s largest telecoms operator, but fortunately, no casualties were immediately reported despite the building being engulfed in flames for hours.

Eerily similar to the Changsha fire is the one which engulfed the UK’s Grenfell Tower fire.

The Grenfell Tower fire killed at least 80 people but the final death toll is expected to rise as the investigation into the deadly fire continues. Both were widespread and posed significant threats to life and property, but none of the three fires proved capable of collapsing the structures.

Unlike the Changsha and Grenfell Tower fires which burned for hours upon end, Building 7 of the World Trade Center reportedly collapsed into its own footprint after having only small fires. NIST claimed this was a result of high temperatures which started when the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center sparked office fires in Building 7.

For comparison, the Grenfell Tower fire burned for 24 hours, charred nearly all 1,000 residences, but yet is still standing. So is the Changsha fire.

Yes, we know these fires are in completely different buildings but it is important to point out that none of these other fires so much as weakened the structure of the buildings enough for anything to fall — much less collapse into its own footprint.

As TFTP reported in 2020, Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth announced the completed partnership with the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) in their final report of an in depth four-year study on what they say actually brought down WTC 7. According to the press release, contrary to the conclusions of NIST, the UAF research team finds that the collapse of WTC 7 on 9/11 was not caused by fires but instead was caused by the near-simultaneous failure of every column in the building.

“Our study found that the fires in WTC 7 could not have caused the observed collapse,” said Professor Leroy Hulsey, the study’s principal investigator. “The only way it could have fallen in the observed manner is by the near-simultaneous failure of every column.”

Since then, fact checkers have called out the study because it was not peer-reviewed but given the controversial nature of the subject, it is no wonder no other schools will touch it. What’s more, simply saying it isn’t peer reviewed, does not debunk it.

The extensive four-year study was was funded by Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth (AE911Truth), a nonprofit organization representing more than 3,000 architects and engineers who have signed the organization’s petition calling for new investigation into the destruction of the three World Trade Center towers on 9/11.

“We are proud to have supported the University of Alaska Fairbanks and Professor Leroy Hulsey in conducting a genuinely scientific study into the reasons for this building’s collapse,” said Richard Gage, president and founder of AE911Truth. “It is now incumbent upon the building community, the media, and government officials to reckon with the implications of these findings and launch a new full-scale investigation.”

According to the study’s authors:

The UAF research team utilized three approaches for examining the structural response of WTC 7 to the conditions that may have occurred on September 11, 2001.

First, we simulated the local structural response to fire loading that may have occurred below Floor 13, where most of the fires in WTC 7 are reported to have occurred.

Second, we supplemented our own simulation by examining the collapse initiation hypothesis developed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).

Third, we simulated a number of scenarios within the overall structural system in order to determine what types of local failures and their locations may have caused the total collapse to occur as observed.

After conducting comprehensive modeling and studying countless scenarios, the study’s authors, J. Leroy Hulsey, Ph.D., P.E., S.E., UAF, Zhili Quan, Ph.D., Bridge Engineer South Carolina Department of Transportation, and Feng Xiao, Ph.D., Associate Professor Nanjing University of Science and Technology Department of Civil Engineering, concluded the following:

Fire did not cause the collapse of WTC 7 on 9/11, contrary to the conclusions of NIST and private engineering firms that studied the collapse. The secondary conclusion of our study is that the collapse of WTC 7 was a global failure involving the near-simultaneous failure of every column in the building.

The results of this study cannot be dismissed nor can the other fires mentioned above — and their lack of damage to the building. No one here is claiming to know what happened that day but one can only see so much evidence before bringing the NIST explanation into question.