Original subtitles

[Narrator] Construction.

Heavy machinery.

Tight schedules.

Millions at stake.

What could go wrong?

Everything.

Whether it's faulty equipment, poor design, human error,

or just bad luck,

these are Construction Fails.

In this episode,

a bridge too far.

In India, construction is booming

and falling down.

Bridges keep collapsing.

What's going on?

Unsuspecting commuters.

A train barrels along the tracks

until the tracks disappear.

The result?

One of Mexico City's deadliest construction fails.

Explosions? Bombs?

No, it's lightning.

Like a bomb dropping from the sky.

Heat hotter than the surface of the sun.

The potential for construction, destruction, and mayhem.

How does a boring 50-year-old office building

become a viral hit?

Blow it up without bringing it down.

Move over, Pisa, there's a new kid in town.

Meet the Leaning Tower of Dallas.

♪ ♪

The sky darkens over the city.

Clouds roll in.

[thunder]

The threat of thunder.

The rain starts.

A quiet street in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

[crash]

This is not your average construction fail.

[Reporter] About two minutes ago...

[Narrator] Maybe the roof gave way

or some clumsy construction workers

demoed the wrong building.

Faulty equipment?

None of the above.

The culprit?

Lightning.

This brief electrical charge

travels at hundreds of thousands of miles per hour

and is five times hotter than the surface of the sun.

That kind of heat can cause

a lot of damage and destruction,

like causing the roof of an ice cream shop

in Pittsburgh to collapse.

[Reporter] About two minutes ago...

[Narrator] The hit from a lightning bolt

was enough to take down part of the building.

Luckily no one was hurt,

except maybe for some melted ice cream.

[thunder]

Yearly, lightning kills 24,000 people,

causes 240,000 injuries

and millions of dollars in property destruction.

[thunder]

Lightning can strike anywhere and at any time.

No building, big or small,

is safe from its electrical tentacles.

[screaming]

So, what makes lightning so potentially destructive?

It starts with a huge electrical spark

inside a cloud.

Positive and negative charges swirl around the cloud,

building up electrical energy.

When these opposite charges slam into each other,

lightning bolts.

Only about an inch in diameter,

lightning bolts pack a lot of punch.

From head to tail, it can be three miles in length.

And the temperature of one bolt

is over 54,000 degrees Fahrenheit.

This is 400 times hotter than the warmest temperature

ever recorded on Earth.

And these electrical missiles

are striking over a billion times a year.

That's what's happening in the sky.

And what happens when that bolt of lightning hits a structure?

Mayhem.

Those positive and negative charges factor in again.

During a thunderstorm, tall buildings or houses

likely have a positive charge.

Lightning coming from a cloud emits a negative charge.

Opposites do attract.

When they meet, the lightning can travel through objects

made of metal, like media antennas.

Sometimes it's like a bomb going off.

When a lightning bolt strikes a house,

it can cause explosions and attack electrical systems.

Lightning wants to find its way to the ground.

If it hits the roof of a house, the path to the ground

could take a destructive journey

through everything plugged into an outlet.

Strikes can be so intense

that an explosion can trigger a fire.

And then there's the old saying,

"Lightning never strikes the same place twice."

[thunder]

Tell that to the residents who live near Lake Maracaibo

and the Catatumbo River in Venezuela,

also called the River of Fire.

This area contains the highest concentration of lightning

on the planet.

According to NASA, lightning activity consistently strikes

300 days out of the year.

Along the northeast coast of Venezuela,

just east of Lake Maracaibo is the city of Puerto La Cruz.

September 2022.

Lightning struck this oil refinery building,

triggering a huge destructive fire.

Even with all that oil, no one was hurt.

But wait, this wasn't the first time.

Nine years earlier,

the same oil refinery was struck by lightning,

causing an explosion and thick clouds of black smoke.

Maybe the saying should be amended.

Lightning never strikes thrice.

Large homes and factories on the ground are one thing.

But what about a moving target?

Like an airplane.

Once or twice a year,

each commercial airplane gets struck by lightning.

No surprise, it can attack the electrical systems

and other mechanical elements of a plane.

But planes have a few methods to combat lightning strikes.

Static electricity discharge systems

are built into the body of modern aircrafts.

Conductive metal or wires absorb static electricity

and transfer to the ground once the plane lands.

Also, the body of a plane

is essentially a large Faraday cage.

A Faraday cage dispenses the electricity

around the exterior of the plane,

keeping the passengers inside safe.

On the outside, static wicks are on airplane wings.

These rod-like things dissipate static electricity

into the atmosphere.

Modern planes have good protection

against lightning bolts, but what about buildings?

Is there such a thing as a lightning-proof building?

Some buildings have a lightning protection system

incorporated into their design.

It starts at the top.

Although anything and anyplace is fair game

for a lightning bolt, they often will hit higher points.

Lightning rods are placed at these high points.

The rods are connected to metal bars or cables

that run all the way to the ground.

The goal is to get the electrical charge

to hit the lightning rod and travel through the building

into the ground without harming the structure.

Lightning is dangerous and deadly,

but necessary.

It helps maintain the balance

between the Earth and the atmosphere.

But when thunder and lightning come rolling into town,

it's best to stay grounded.

Life is risky.

We're all pawns in a cosmic game of chance.

Disaster might be lurking around the corner,

so be careful where you step.

And remember, look sharp and look up,

because Chicken Little wasn't just paranoid,

the sky is falling.

If you want to stay out of the crosshairs of calamity,

forget skill or strategy

because there's nothing smarter than dumb luck.

Sometimes you're just trying to avoid the rain

and end up dodging a bullet.

Nobody can really see into the future,

but fate must have given them a little nudge,

which is why they had the good sense, or sixth sense,

to casually stroll out of the danger zone moments before...

[crash]

...the danger happens.

Social media's taking a lot of flak these days,

but sometimes it can be a real lifesaver.

Looks like this doom-scroller

just got DM'd a two-word message.

"Look out!"

Back up.

A little more. A little more.

[crash]

Oh! Must have hit harder than it looked.

You dinged him, but probably nobody's going to notice.

[thumping]

What is that thumping?

What, are they clog dancing up there?

[crash]

It's a good reminder--

Never put a daycare under a dance school.

This environmentally conscious woman

takes her recycling seriously.

She's braving the rain to cross the bridge

and collect her blue bin.

Looks like the bridge shares her eco-friendly values.

It's biodegradable.

She'll be taking the long way home.

Correlation is not causation.

So, just because this guy is yanking on his shutter

doesn't mean he triggered the catastrophe

at his competition across the street.

Or does it?

Hey, gastronauts, thanks for checking out my food vlog.

Today we're making a simple...

[crash]

...recipe for disaster.

Thank you for shopping at Windy Isles Mall.

Hope you bought an umbrella.

And be sure to watch for our upcoming

going-out-of-business sale.

All items drastically reduced.

Some to smithereens.

You can play it safe and take every precaution,

but if that falling piano has your name on it,

it'll be plunking out your finale.

So roll out of bed, roll the dice,

and live every day like it's your last,

because it could be.

No human beings were harmed in the making of this video,

which is a miracle.

Must have been their lucky day.

[Narrator] This is a tale of two sinking cities.

One is built on water.

The other--water has nothing to do with it.

An architectural wonder, Venice sits on 118 islands

that are connected by about 400 bridges.

Gondolas sail along the 177 canals.

The city itself is a work of art.

And this work of art is sinking into the sea.

Venice was constructed on water.

But the Venetians needed to keep water

out of the buildings,

so structures were built on several layers of materials.

The key--timber piles from the forests of Croatia,

and lots of them.

Millions.

The piles were thrust into the mud and clay

and supported the city's foundations.

And those piles helped keep

the buildings and ornate homes standing.

But, since Venice was founded,

the surrounding sea level has risen by almost six feet.

That's a lot more water to keep out of buildings.

So, why is Venice still sinking?

The weight of the city is compacting the clay and mud.

This means the seafloor could be like a sponge.

The more you squeeze, the more it compacts.

And just like everywhere else, the sea level is rising.

Throw in the human effects of groundwater extraction

and over the last 100 years,

Venice has sunk almost six inches.

And it continues to sink

a fraction of an inch every year.

As Venetians lazily sail down one of the 177 canals,

they may not notice a millimeter or two.

But they might feel it in other ways,

like catastrophic floods.

November 2019.

Venice is submerged in some of the most destructive flooding

in its history.

The city was no longer just surrounded by water,

70% of Venice was under it.

And the buildings couldn't cope,

including the famous St. Mark's Square,

where people waded through knee-deep water.

According to the Institute of Marine Sciences,

the cause of the flood

was due to the effects of unusually high tides

and substantial rain.

Venice can handle these elements individually,

but combined together,

floods of historical proportions.

This flood was the catalyst

to finally get a possible solution operational--

the Experimental Electromechanical Module.

Short form--MOSE.

Like Moses from the Bible, who parted the seas.

In the works for almost 50 years

and costing a cool $5.3 billion,

MOSE helps to lower the tide against flooding in Venice.

The first time MOSE rose from the sea was on October 3, 2020.

In theory, MOSE is simple.

Big walls stop water from flooding the city.

If the tides from the Adriatic Sea get too high,

the walls fill with air and cut through the surface

into a vertical position.

When the tide lowers, the air is replaced with water,

lowering it back under and out of sight.

It's this ability to move that is the key to MOSE.

In the resting position along the seafloor,

it's not in the way of passing ships.

And the maintenance is more cost-effective

than a permanent, riveted wall.

When MOSE became operational, officials figured they'd need

to employ it about five times a year.

In the first two years, MOSE emerged from the sea,

on average, five times more than estimated.

And as those sea levels continue to rise,

MOSE will be very busy.

The National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology

have predicted that in 125 years,

Venice will be underwater.

Even MOSE won't save them.

Those gondolas will continue to come in handy.

On the other side of the Atlantic Ocean,

when you think of Chicago,

you think "The Windy City," not "The Sinking City."

Chicago is one of the biggest cities in the United States.

The skyscrapers.

Deep-dish pizza.

A rich history of the blues.

But Chicago doesn't have

the same flooding problem as Venice.

Its buildings are not built on wooden piles like Venice.

In fact, water isn't even the problem.

So, why is Chicago sinking?

[Narrator] Underground climate change.

Temperatures are not just rising above ground,

but underneath as well.

Human activity generates heat,

and that heat gets released and accumulates into the ground.

Heat from things like buildings,

parking garages, and subways.

In some parts of Chicago,

temperatures as high as 97 degrees Fahrenheit

have been recorded underground.

After the Chicago Union Elevated Railway, or the "L,"

was completed in 1897,

the city's downtown was commonly called the Loop.

The area includes plenty of high-end shopping

and Millennium Park.

In dense areas like the Loop,

with lots of underground activity and heavy buildings,

studies have found the underground temperature

to be upwards of 80 degrees Fahrenheit,

hotter than in areas like beneath parks.

This heat collects in pockets to form

what researchers call subsurface heat islands.

These subsurface heat islands cause the soil to contract,

like letting the air out of a balloon.

And when soil contracts, the things sitting on top of it,

like heavy Chicago buildings in the Loop, sink.

And this sinking causes tiny cracks in foundations

and irregular infrastructure movement.

These changes might be small,

but over time will be big trouble.

And this isn't just a Chicago problem.

Any big city with old buildings and lots happening underground,

like New York or London, has the same problems.

Engineers are looking at solutions to all this heat.

One way is a form of recycling,

where instead of all that heat making its way into the ground,

it can be rerouted and used as energy for buildings.

And more thermal insulation in buildings can also help

keep excessive heat out of the ground.

Chicago is sinking... slowly.

There's still time to get

one of those famous pizzas delivered.

Cities were built without the knowledge

of what might happen hundreds of years down the line.

As cities sink and sea levels rise,

urban planning will need to be better

at protecting against construction fails.

Bigger walls and cooler underground temperatures.

[Narrator] India is a vast country.

And it has a problem.

Bridges keep falling.

Not just one or two,

or even three.

More than 2,000.

In a 40-year span from 1977 to 2017,

2,130 bridges have failed, fallen, or collapsed.

That's over 50 collapses every year.

So, what's going on?

Research shows that more than half of bridge collapses

in India are due to these structures being unable

to stay standing against flooding,

setting up a recipe for destruction.

All you need to do is add water,

and vulnerabilities can cause disaster.

Fast-moving water clocking in at 10 miles per hour

can exert the same amount of pressure

as Category 5 hurricane winds.

These bridges didn't stand a chance.

But it's not just old bridges that are collapsing.

Far from it.

There has been an explosion of infrastructure expansion

across the country.

When it comes to construction growth,

India is in the top three nations,

along with the United States and China.

In a little over 10 years,

estimates peg these three countries

at making up 51% of all construction work.

With a population of over a billion people,

cities and communities can never have enough roads,

highway networks, and bridges.

Some bridge projects are being constructed too quickly.

With this construction boom and a need for more bridges,

there can be too much room for error at the design stage.

There is little time or money

for the appropriate geotechnical tests of the area,

and the wrong materials sometimes get used

for foundations.

After concrete, steel is the most common material

used in bridge building.

But over time, steel is corrosive,

which is not good for places with lots of floods.

This corrosiveness breaks it down,

pushing the material to the limit,

until it can't hold on anymore.

And some don't even make it to opening day.

With new bridges comes new technology

and also inexperience.

Over 100 bridge failures have happened

before a car or person even crossed them.

Bihar is on the east side of India.

A state steeped in history, vibrant culture,

and falling bridges.

June and July 2024.

In just two months, 15 bridges failed.

This two-mile-long, four-lane bridge

was being built to ease traffic congestion,

something it never got a chance to do.

Before it even opened,

the bridge collapsed into the Ganges River,

first in April 2022

and again almost a year later in June 2023.

And incredibly, a third time in August 2024.

Although the construction company

is being cagey with the causes,

industry professionals suggest the possible reason

for the collapse was bridge span misalignment.

After all, the concrete spans have to align

for the bridge to be a bridge

that people and things can cross.

[Narrator] 100 miles away along the Kosi River,

this collapse cost one worker his life

and injured nine others.

The 6.3-mile bridge was under construction

when a concrete span failed, falling to the ground.

This structure was slated to be India's longest road bridge.

It never had a chance to claim that record.

Near the city of Araria,

this bridge almost made it to the finish line.

Almost.

Constructed over the Bakra River,

the bridge was almost completed

when several pillars collapsed.

According to local reports,

residents claimed the building materials were low quality.

As with many of these collapses,

it's a game of finger-pointing.

In this case, politicians firmly put the blame

on negligence by the construction company owner.

At least it failed before anyone stepped foot on it.

With all these collapses and in such a short amount of time,

something had to be done.

The government of Bihar created a new policy

where each bridge in the state is issued a health card.

Engineers will monitor the condition of each bridge

and conduct inspections,

determining any necessary upgrades.

Assessing the health of bridges couldn't come at a better time

and is a necessary step to keep India's bridges standing tall.

These creative masterminds combine the unlikeliest objects

to invent tools that are equal parts sublime and ridiculous.

These everyday MacGyvers might not be entitled

to a whole TV series,

but they've certainly earned their 15 seconds of fame.

Talk about multitasking.

This contraption saws firewood

and burns calories at the same time.

This stationary biker is really going places.

There's more than one way to skin a fruit.

One false move, and there's applesauce on the ceiling

and fingers on the floor, but that's the price of innovation.

Swinging precariously from a jury-rigged pulley system,

this tree trimmer is really going out on a limb for his job

and may be regretting his career choice.

Meanwhile, his friends are placing bets

on what's hitting the ground first,

the branch or the branch manager.

Mowing the lawn is thirsty work,

so a good neighbor air-drops the grass cutter

a refreshing brew.

By the time he's done,

cans of beer might not be the only thing getting bombed.

Most supermarkets offer shopping carts for convenience.

This one offers a backhoe delivery service,

curbside and riverside.

Pickup has never been more convenient.

Holy construction chaos, Batman!

This is either an attention- grabbing marketing campaign

or a costumed thief that is making off

with a lot of heavy machinery.

Fire up the grill and the drill,

and you're taking fast food up to warp speed.

Who said chickens couldn't fly?

Different bird, same drill.

Next, they'll be basting it with a paint sprayer.

This old washing machine is doubling as a doghouse.

The only downside is shrinkage.

A couple of loads ago, that little pooch was a Great Dane.

When there's a sudden and urgent need for toilet paper,

first responders take to the air.

Thank you for your service.

Mr. Niblett had a lot of corn on the cob to shuck,

but not a lot of time.

If a drill worked for apples, it'll do wonders with corn.

These clever students harnessed the wind in a drafty stairwell

to create a mini turbine,

generating enough power to cut science class.

And this brilliant panhandler has figured out a way

to generate energy using old woks.

Amazingly, it also just received

a communication from space,

an order for Kung Pao chicken and Cantonese chow mein.

It just goes to show that if you've got vision,

imagination, and a roll of duct tape,

you can fix anything, just by breaking the rules.

And if you don't have the right tools to get the job done,

do it anyway.

How? Just MacGyver it.

Cooling towers.

Sleeping giants of the factory world.

These enormous structures

line the landscapes of industrial cities.

It's not just a clever name.

Cooling towers help lower temperatures.

Sometimes they become outdated, outpaced by advancements,

and are no longer needed.

The easiest way to take down a giant?

Blow it up.

But some come down on their own.

♪ ♪

The port city of Haifa in Israel.

A pair of cooling towers cast a shadow on the city.

Decades old, the two towers hadn't been used since 2009.

The one on the left was being used

as a visitor and training center.

The one on the right, a hole developed

and plans were formed to reinforce it

with sprayed concrete.

But they never got a chance.

The tower collapsed on June 12, 2020.

So, what went wrong?

[Narrator] Along with the hole,

an internal support wall fell down.

And after years of disrepair,

it was only a matter of time before the tower crumbled.

When experts examined the remains of the cooling tower,

they deemed it dangerous

and recommended demolishing what was left.

Those experts got their wish.

Demolition on the tower

started about one year after the collapse.

How does a cooling tower actually work?

Cooling towers collaborate hand in hand

with large industrial factories like giant power plants.

Heat goes in, cold goes out.

The technical term? Evaporative cooling.

The power plant generates hot water,

which gets sent to the neighboring tower.

Throw in some air as the water moves up the tower

and then back down, cooling it.

The best part?

The remaining water is returned to be used in the power plant,

and the whole process starts again.

The smoke screen coming from the cooling towers

is actually just harmless water vapor,

the finished product of the evaporative cooling process.

A cooling tower resembles a giant kettle

sitting on a stove.

The difference?

A kettle produces steam by boiling water,

a cooling tower makes vapor by removing heat.

And for some, disaster strikes before there is ever a chance

for that vapor to billow out of the tower.

Willow Island,

located in Pleasants County, West Virginia.

Coal was big in the 1970s along the Ohio Valley.

At the Pleasants Power Station, two concrete cooling towers

were being added to the 30-year-old site.

The first tower went up in 1977.

Before the second was completed, it collapsed.

April 27, 1978, at 10 a.m.,

scaffolding holding 51 workers failed.

They all fell, and they all died.

All 51.

Resulting in one of the deadliest

single construction fails in United States history.

So, what went wrong?

To build the tower,

the crew used something called the “lift form” technique.

As workers build a section, they let the concrete harden,

then bolt the scaffolding on this new layer

and repeat.

The Willow Island tower was going up five feet every day.

Experts say that the curing, or drying, process for concrete

takes time, at least 24 hours before it can handle loads.

On the morning of the collapse,

the concrete was only poured 18 hours earlier.

And with curing concrete, every minute counts.

But that's not all.

Scaffolding bolts were missing.

A concrete hoisting system was changed.

Safety measures were ignored

in favor of a rush to the finish line.

And all this rushing and cutting corners

led to the deaths of 51 people.

The contractors were cited with 20 violations

by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration,

including the faulty concrete

and lack of safety with the scaffolding.

The case made it all the way to a federal grand jury,

but no one was ever found criminally responsible

for the deaths.

Word of the tragic deaths ripped through Pleasants County

and was national news.

One man lost 10 members of his family,

among them, four of his sons and his brother.

The Pleasants Power Station

did eventually get its new cooling towers,

but at a very high cost.

The design and process behind cooling towers

has worked for over a century.

Those behemoths will continue to spew their vapor

until we don't need them anymore.

[Narrator] Mexico City,

home to over 22 million people.

On the evening of May 3, 2021,

over 100 people boarded a metro train just like this one.

26 of them would not reach their stop.

The metro train barreled along the Golden Line,

which services a borough in the southeast side of Mexico City.

The train closed its doors at Tezonco Station

and headed east towards Olivos Station.

Between these stations, the elevated overpass failed,

causing the last two train cars to fall.

The train cars got stuck between the elevated track

and the ground below.

26 people died.

Around 100 were injured.

Mexico City Metro's deadliest accident

in almost half a century.

So, what went wrong?

The Mexico City Metro has continually expanded

since the first transit line was built in 1967.

It connects the entire city and surrounding areas,

including 41 neighborhoods and 16 boroughs.

These are linked by 139 miles of track,

195 stations, and 12 lines.

An average of 4.2 million people

ride the metro every day.

In North America,

it's second only to the New York City subway.

The Golden Line was completed in 2012,

considered by government officials as one of the most

large-scale and costly public infrastructure projects

ever for Mexico City.

When the expansion opened,

it was a crucial link between the outskirts of the suburbs

and the city center.

But Line 12, the Golden Line,

was doomed with problems from the start.

One month after opening in 2012,

there were 60 equipment failures.

In 2014, the entire Golden Line,

that included the section that would later collapse,

closed for repairs.

The next year, two trains crashed into each other,

sending 12 people to the hospital.

A 7.1 magnitude earthquake hit Mexico City in 2017

and revealed problems and inconsistencies

with the concrete and steel.

Everything might look good from the outside.

Trains can arrive on time.

The transit system can get people from here to there.

But the hidden and ignored defects grow and expand.

All that stands between someone getting to work

and absolute disaster is time.

And at 10:22 p.m. on May 3rd, time was up.

All of the construction problems and ignored issues

of the previous eight years resulted in the two trains

stuck in a catastrophic V-shaped position.

In order to hold the weight of the passing metro trains,

the platform was fortified with three parts.

Large steel beams ran from the ground up to the platform.

Flat concrete slabs ran under the track.

Strong metal studs connected the beams and the slab.

If installed correctly, the concrete, steel, and studs

would have no problems supporting the weight.

Engineers who analyzed the wreckage

believe this durable bond of materials was defective.

That defect?

The studs were not connected properly,

and over time they loosened.

Evidence suggests that at the time of the crash,

the concrete slabs were not securely attached to the beams.

When assembled accurately, these three parts--

the steel beams, the concrete slabs, and the metal studs--

were so strong,

it was considered a nearly unbreakable bond.

By incorrectly installing the studs,

it was inevitable that the platform would fail.

And fail, it did.

The last two train cars fell 40 feet below.

It only took seconds to take the lives of 26 people.

After much finger-pointing, the Mexican government hired

an independent Norwegian company

to investigate the collapse.

The conclusion?

Design flaws and shoddy construction work

were the cause.

Three years after the collapse,

the Golden Line resumed operation.

After the fallen train car was hoisted by two giant cranes

and the track repaired, the government assured commuters

that the elevated sections

have all the studs in the right places.

[Narrator] As the saying goes,

everything is bigger in Texas--

the highways,

the hats,

the sheer size.

It's the second largest U.S. state,

both geographically and in population,

so it's no wonder that when a building

needs to be demolished, they also do it in a big way.

They blow it up.

♪ ♪

Dallas. February 2020.

A nearly 50-year-old office building was slated

to be knocked down by controlled demolition.

300 pounds of dynamite was packed into 11 floors

of the building by the demo crew.

A crowd formed to cheer on the explosion.

3, 2, 1.

Like a snake shedding its skin,

the outer layer of the building

dramatically fell to the ground.

The core not only remained standing,

but with a 15-degree lean to the side.

And out of the dust emerged the Leaning Tower of Dallas.

So, what went wrong?

Controlled implosion is carried out

by placing explosives throughout the building,

especially around areas that keep it standing,

like the foundation.

Dynamite is often the explosive of choice for concrete.

After the big bang and with the help of gravity,

the building collapses in on itself.

Most of the time.

300 pounds of dynamite was just not enough

to bring down the core of the Leaning Tower of Dallas.

Two silos in Denmark.

One a textbook example

of a successful controlled demolition.

The other a textbook example of a failed controlled explosion.

You win some, you lose some.

[bystander speaking foreign language]

[Narrator] And in Detroit,

this enormous 80,000-person-capacity arena

was set for implosion back in 2017.

When the explosions ignited,

it was more of a whimper than a bang.

The Dallas tower's namesake, the Leaning Tower of Pisa,

didn't need explosives to tilt.

Built centuries ago in the Italian city of Pisa,

this marble tower started leaning almost immediately.

The foundation settled unevenly,

which caused it to lean 5.5 degrees.

This construction fail also made it

one of the most famous structures in the world.

[Tourist] Ready? Hold it. Smile.

[Narrator] But for about two weeks,

the Leaning Tower of Dallas made more headlines

than its Italian cousin.

The failed demolition went viral,

turning into a social media hit.

Residents flocked to the site,

taking selfies against the backdrop of the leaning tower.

An online petition suggested

that the city should keep it standing

and even turn it into a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Besides the amount of explosions used,

there was another reason that left the core still standing.

It was built with a slip-form concrete core,

and it was built to last.

This type of construction builds the core

from the foundation all the way up to the top floor.

The concrete is poured in such a way

as to construct large spans,

which enhances structural integrity.

It's perfect for housing elevator shafts or stairwells

and keep them standing,

or leaning.

And it stands without needing support

from the rest of the structure.

That's why, during the failed demo,

the rest of the building fell down around this core.

This combination, not enough explosives

and the strong structural integrity of the core,

helped create the Leaning Tower of Dallas.

The building stood, or tilted, for another two weeks.

The construction crew finally brought in the wrecking ball.

But not everything is big in Texas.

The wrecking ball weighed about 5,600 pounds,

but next to the building, it looked ridiculously small.

There are regulations around the sizes of wrecking balls.

It cannot be more than half the weight of the crane.

To get a bigger wrecking ball, they needed a bigger crane.

According to experts, the demo company was most likely wrong

about the size of the crane that was needed,

and a bigger crane costs more money,

money the company probably didn't want to spend.

Demolishing a building with a wrecking ball

is a much slower process,

eight days slower,

especially with this particular wrecking ball.

That's how long it took for the 5,600-pound wrecking ball

to take down the rest of the building.

Although the Leaning Tower of Dallas didn't last centuries,

it made its way into the heart of all Texans.