The SEG Plaza skyscraper, which stands at 980 feet tall in Shenzhen, China, had to be evacuated in the middle of the day as the building swayed. Visitors and shoppers poured out from the building in panic at 1 pm on Tuesday.
To everyone's shock, the shaking was not caused by an earthquake as none was recorded at the time. South China Morning Post reported that the Shenzhen Emergency Management Bureau is working with authorities to figure out the cause of the 20-year-old building wobble.
The SEG Plaza is 79 floors tall and is the 5th tallest building in Huaqiangbei. Multiple video clips of the high-rise building swaying in one of the biggest electronic components bazaars have gone viral around China. However, visitors did not notice the shaking very much.
One of the store's vendors of SEG Plaza claimed that he had not felt any shaking at all until his friend pointed to him that the water bottles on the desk were shaking.
The Shenzhen Emergency Management Bureau requested immediately evacuation from the building after noticing it was shaking.
— Shenzhen Pages (@ShenzhenPages) May 18, 2021
People rushed out of the buildings, and no injuries, nor property losses have been reported.
Getty
SCMP -Via
Another vendor located on the lower floors also shared her witness account.
Getty
Ji Jialin, who managed the Segmaker Space that was located on the 14th floor, shared what she felt during the shake.
“The shaking didn’t seem strong from the 14th floor ... we all escaped with others by taking the stairs,”
At 1.50 pm, most people were on their lunch break.
Authorities are working with experts to figure out what caused the shaking.
— Shenzhen Pages (@ShenzhenPages) May 18, 2021
China Construction Science and Industry Corp chief engineer, Lu Jianxin, theorized that it might have been the 'resonance' effects. Quote from Shenzhen Special Zone Daily, Jianxin said, “If there was no earthquake today, it would be unusual for SEG Plaza to have such a situation. Judging from the currently available information, this could be an accidental frequency coincidence, that is, resonance.”
While the shaking has stopped, the building has remained closed since the incident.
SCMP -Via
The area around the mall had been barricaded, and fire trucks were seen parking nearby. There are no confirmations as to when this situation could be resolved.
SCMP -Via
The wind was 27km per hour at the time, a speed that experts believed weren't enough to sway a building in that way.
Getty
The incident had caused a drop in Shenzhen SEG share by 1.66%.
Getty
