In February, 2009 the Beijing Television Cultural Center – TVCC (main tenant was Mandarin Oriental Hotel) burned for six (6) hours after being accidentally set on fire by staff in the adjacent CCTV (China Central Television) building who were setting off fireworks for the Yuanxiao holiday.
The Yuanxiao holiday is also known in English as the Lantern Festival. The festival is celebrated on the fifteenth day of the first month in the Lunisolar year in the lunar calendar marking the last day of the lunar New Year celebration.
You can view the immense fireworks display, which lead t0 the fire, in the video below:
Here’s a picture of the building before the fire:
Here’s a picture of the building after the fire:
Here’s the building being rebuilt in 2011, with the same steel that burned for six (6) hours:
The initial images of the blaze suggested that the tower might be nearly destroyed. However, Rem Koolhaas said that, “they are simply rebuilding it as it was, because there was no structural damage.”
Remment Lucas “Rem” Koolhaas is a Dutch architect, architectural theorist, urbanist and Professor in Practice of Architecture and Urban Design at the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University.
World Trade Center, September 11, 2001:
South Tower: collapsed at 9:59 a.m. after burning for approximately 56 minutes.
North Tower: collapsed at 10:28 a.m. after burning for approximately 102 minutes.
Source – NIST NCSTAR 1-1 (2005), p. 34; pp. 45–46
World Trade Center 7 (47-floor steel building): endured fire for almost seven hours, 10:28:22 a.m. until 5:20:52 p.m., and then collapsed.
Source – http://www.nist.gov/el/disasterstudies/wtc/faqs_wtc7.cfm
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New Allegations Renew Old Questions About Saudi Arabia, 9-11
ABC News / Associated Press
Ken Dilanian, AP Intelligence Writer
2/7/2015
Excerpt:
For years, some current and former American officials have been urging President Barack Obama to release secret files they say document links between the government of Saudi Arabia and the Sept. 11 attacks.
Other officials, including the executive director of the Sept. 11 commission, have said the classified documents do not prove that the Saudi government knew about or financed the 2001 terrorist attacks, and that making the material public would serve no purpose.
Now, unsubstantiated court testimony by Zacharias Moussaoui, a former al-Qaida member serving life in federal prison, has renewed the push by those who want a closer look into whether there was official Saudi involvement with al-Qaida and the Sept. 11 hijackers. They say it should start with the release of 28 pages relating to Saudi Arabia from a joint congressional inquiry into the attacks.
“We owe the families a full accounting,” said Rep. Stephen Lynch of Massachusetts, a Democrat who has read the classified pages written in 2002. They were left out of the public version of the report on the orders of President George W. Bush, who said they could divulge intelligence sources and methods. Officials on both sides of the debate acknowledge that protecting the delicate U.S.-Saudi relationship also played a role.
Lynch and Rep. Walter Jones, R-N.C., have sponsored a resolution that calls for declassifying the records. The White House has asked intelligence agencies to review the pages with an eye toward potential declassification, spokesman Ned Price said, but there is no timetable.
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View the complete article at:
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/allegations-renew-questions-saudi-arabia-11-28795840