BANGKOK, THAILAND – The collapse of the 33‑storey State Audit Office tower after a March 2025 earthquake was found to be a man‑made disaster with far‑reaching political and legal consequences.
One tower falls as the city holds
On 28 March 2025, tremors from neighboring Myanmar shook Bangkok, leaving 169 buildings with cracks but no major structural failures, according to Governor Chadchart Sittipunt. The unfinished State Audit Office (SAO) tower on Kamphaeng Phet 2 Road in Chatuchak district, then about 30% complete, suddenly crumpled in seconds into a pile of steel and concrete. By mid‑May, rescue teams reported 95 dead, nine injured and four missing, including at least ten migrant workers from Myanmar and one Cambodian among the victims.
International rescue, rising domestic pressure
A large‑scale rescue operation began immediately, with excavators and cranes working through the rubble as hopes of finding survivors faded by the hour. Teams from the United States joined the search, while the Israeli embassy supplied a special scanning device to locate people trapped under the debris. As the rest of the skyline stood, political pressure mounted over why a flagship state high‑rise had failed so catastrophically.
Steel under suspicion, then misuse confirmed
Two days after the disaster, Industry Minister Akanat Promphan flagged irregular findings in steel samples from the site, focusing on Chinese supplier Xin Ke Yuan Steel, whose plant had already been shut down by authorities in December 2024. Early indications pointed to substandard materials, but later analyses concluded the steel itself was not fundamentally below specification. Instead, the problem lay in its illegal modification and improper use on the construction site.
Official findings: design and execution failures
On 30 June 2025, Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra released the official investigation results, with experts reaching a clear conclusion.
“The cause of the collapse lies in deficiencies in planning and execution.”
said Paetongtarn Shinawatra, Prime Minister.
Key weaknesses cited included incorrectly designed shear walls around elevator shafts and stairwells, concrete below the required quality and poor workmanship that ignored accepted engineering standards. On the steel issue, the premier stressed the material had been
“cut into smaller pieces and used contrary to regulations – thus effectively illegal.”
said Paetongtarn Shinawatra, Prime Minister.
It was not the product itself, she said, but its misuse that contributed to the instability.
Focus shifts to who is responsible
Once the technical causes were outlined, attention turned to accountability. On 8 May 2025, Pol Maj‑General Noppasin Poolsawat of the Metropolitan Police identified three main groups under investigation: planners Forum Architect and Meinhardt (Thailand), the ITD‑CREC Joint Venture, comprising Italian‑Thai Development and China Railway Number 10 (Thailand), and the PKW Joint Venture responsible for site supervision with PN Synchronize, W and Associates Consultants and KP Consultants and Management. The main contractor sought to deflect blame, with Kriengsak Kovadhana of Italian‑Thai Development stating on 9 May 2025 that the company had built strictly to the client’s and designers’ plans.
“We built in accordance with the plans of the client and the designers.”
said Kriengsak Kovadhana, Italian-Thai Development executive.
Contractor points to plan changes and oversight
Kriengsak said there had been nine plan revisions and that ITD had filed more than 700 formal requests over design inconsistencies. Regarding thinner walls at elevator shafts, he explained the change was introduced to comply with state requirements. The structural review of altered plans, he argued, was not the remit of the builder.
“Checking the structural integrity of revised plans is not the responsibility of the construction company.”
said Kriengsak Kovadhana, Italian-Thai Development executive.
He thereby pushed responsibility back onto designers and supervisory consultants.
From building site to criminal courtroom
Criminal proceedings began within weeks of the collapse. On 19 April 2025, a Chinese representative of China Railway No. 10 was arrested, followed on 15 May by arrest warrants for 17 people, including former ITD president Premchai Karnasuta, who surrendered with 14 other suspects and denied the allegations. On 7 August 2025, prosecutors charged 23 individuals and legal entities with offences ranging from professional misconduct and breaches of safety regulations causing death to forgery and the use of forged documents. At a 22 November 2025 hearing, six Meinhardt engineers were released on bail under strict conditions, including a travel ban, underscoring that the legal process was likely to stretch over many years.
Corruption probes reach top audit officials
In parallel to the construction‑related charges, anti‑corruption efforts gained momentum amid questions over whether irregularities in awarding the prestigious state project had paved the way for later abuses. On 20 June 2025, the Department of Special Investigation (DSI) handed the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) 46 case files containing 17,620 documents on suspected bid‑rigging in the SAO project. In total, 76 people were implicated, including 70 state officials, with suspicion reaching into the top ranks of the audit system itself: former Auditor General Prajak Boonyang, incumbent Auditor General Montien Charoenphol and General Chanathap Inthamara, chair of the State Audit Commission, were all named.
Integrity pact failure and a “shadowy figure”
Mana Nimitmongkol, president of the civil society Anti-Corruption Organization (ACT), criticised the breakdown of a planned transparency tool for the project. The SAO scheme was supposed to be covered by an Integrity Pact with external monitoring.
“This pact was never implemented,”
said Mana Nimitmongkol, president of the Anti-Corruption Organization (ACT).
He spoke of a
“dark figure”
said Mana Nimitmongkol, president of the Anti-Corruption Organization (ACT).
who had blocked the mechanism, arguing that watchdogs believed this created conditions in which abuse could more easily be concealed.
Steel standards dispute rattles the industry
The steel controversy also had repercussions beyond the SAO site. On 24 October 2025, ten leading steel associations jointly urged the Industry Ministry to prevent Xin Ke Yuan from restarting production. They accused the manufacturer of using induction furnaces without subsequent refining, which they said produced contaminated steel that failed to meet Thai Industrial Standards (TIS) and posed a serious safety risk for buildings. The associations also warned that this practice gave the producer a cost advantage over firms investing in more complex, compliant processes.
Warning system failure exposes disaster gaps
The collapse highlighted not only weaknesses in construction oversight but also flaws in disaster management. On the day of the quake, SMS alerts from the Department of Disaster Prevention and Mitigation (DDPM) largely failed. Many mobile users received their first messages more than 24 hours after the tremor, causing confusion and, in some cases, being misread as warnings of a new event. At a meeting on 29 March 2025, Paetongtarn Shinawatra ordered immediate improvements and instructed DDPM and the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC) to work with mobile operators to eliminate delays.
Legacy of an avoidable catastrophe
Reviews of thousands of documents, expert reports and witness statements pointed to a clear conclusion: the SAO tower collapse was not an unavoidable consequence of the earthquake, but the outcome of a toxic mix of design flaws, regulatory breaches and suspected corruption. The 95 workers who died did so on a state construction site where they had trusted in basic safety, turning the wreckage in Chatuchak into a stark symbol of the cost of negligence, weak oversight and undermined transparency in public construction. As 169 buildings stood and one fell, the disaster left open not only questions of technical failure, but of the moral choices that shaped the project long before the ground shook.