A 3,000 tonne building in this Central Highland province has been moved 10m away from its original position by an engineer from Ha Noi.

The 3,000 tonne building being moved by engineer Do Quoc Khanh. — Photo dantri.com.vn 

Do Quoc Khanh, locally referred to as a genie, from Nam Company for Drooping, Sloping and Falling (Vina DSF Co., Ltd.), was quoted by online paper dantri.com.vn as saying that a total of more than 300 tonnes of equipment and 30 workers had been mobilised to move the building, which belonged to the Dak Lak Military Command.

He has vowed to ensure the integrity of the building's structure and to prevent any sloping, falling or cracking, saying this was one of the most important parts of his work.

Khanh said his group would move the building some 10m each day, then take a break to conduct repair work and change the moving equipment. Thus, his plan to finish moving the building 70m from its original position within 20 days appears feasible.

The two-storey building was built some 223 years ago, covering a total of 1,800sq.m. of floor space. It is 58m long and 26m wide.

During the move, the building will also be turned 90 degrees.

Khanh said it was the biggest and heaviest structure in the Central Highland and southern region that his company had ever been contracted to remove.

The engineer, who helped establish the Vietnamese structural moving industry, said rudimentary tools and methods worked fine for moving structures that weighed several hundred or fewer than 2,000 tonnes. For moving buildings weighing thousands of tonnes, rudimentary methods are useless, and inexperienced structural movers may not recognise this.

Khanh received an award in 2008 from the International Association of Structural Movers (IASM), based in the United States, for successfully moving the 3,000-tonne Phu Cat building of the Informatics Telecommunication Hi-Tech Manufacturing Science Union in that year in the then northern province of Ha Tay, now part of Ha Noi.

But Khanh is not the only "genie" in the country. There are several structural movers in business across the country, including Nguyen Cam Luy, Luong Van Phu, Le Van Sang and Nguyen Van Cu.

VNS