China’s Tofu-Dreg Disaster: Buildings Crumble, Residents Flee Crumbling Towers!

After looking at the north side of the balcony, I came back to this window and it became like this. I'm going to burn it. I'm going to burn it. I can't do it now. You can do it. Oh my god. Oh my god. Brown stained water dripping from ceilings. Walls splitting like cracked porcelain. Steel bones of a building laid bare under peeling plaster. This isn't the aftermath of an earthquake. These are freshly built skyscrapers in China's bustling cities. Families are packing up in fear. Towers barely five years old are now condemned as unsafe. The so-called Chinese housing miracle is collapsing. Floor by floor. Brick by brick. For two decades, China built at a pace the world had never seen. Concrete jungles sprouted almost overnight, reshaping skylines from Shanghai's glittering coast to Chengdu's inland core. It was a transformation so vast that in just three years, China poured more cement than the United States used in the entire 20th century. But this breakneck boom came with a hidden price. When the 2008 financial crisis hit, Beijing responded with a construction frenzy to keep the economy alive. Local governments chased political achievements. Developers raced deadlines, cutting every possible corner. Design. Materials. Inspections. Even the skill of the workers themselves. Speed was king. Durability was optional. Entire neighborhoods rose in under 12 months, often with untrained labor and regulations that existed only on paper. Ghost cities emerged. Thousands of empty units, built for statistics, not for people. GDP soared, and the illusion of progress flourished, until the buildings began to rot from the inside. Some towers weren't built to last 50 years, or even 20. They were doomed to fail within a decade. Cheap sand mixed into cement. Steel reinforcements skipped entirely. Waterproofing ignored. Ventilation poorly installed. Officials signed off on unsafe structures, inspections were faked, and bribes sealed the deal. Buyers moved in, unaware their dream homes were ticking time bombs. Now, the cracks are no longer hidden. They're spreading. Fast. From megacities to small towns, high-rises built in the last decade are already falling apart. In Chengdu, a 31-story building, just six years old, earned the nickname, Instant Aging. Leaks appeared within two years. Ceilings bulged. Cracks raced along the walls. And a slab of plaster plunged from the 19th floor, narrowly missing a child. Videos went viral, before sensors erased them. In Guiyang, a nine-year-old tower had to be evacuated when its foundation shifted. Families were forced into temporary shelters, with no compensation. Investigators later found the developer had skipped crucial piling work to save money. In Suzhou, so-called luxury apartments are deteriorating in plain sight. Bathroom tiles peeling off. Elevators breaking down weekly. Balcony rails corroding within four years of handover. Million-yuan homes have become worthless, their value sinking alongside their crumbling walls. China's building boom promised a future of steel and glass. What's emerging instead is a slow-motion disaster, one crack at a time. In Zhengzhou, Henan, two glass towers stand side-by-side. One gleaming in the sun, the other leaning ominously. Windows shattered, its base wrapped in yellow caution tape. It's the perfect snapshot of China's real estate boom. Glitter on the outside, decay at the core. Across the country, local governments are quietly erasing these ticking time bombs. Sometimes in the dead of night, giving residents just hours to pack and leave. Compensation is rarely mentioned. Videos of the demolitions vanish from the Internet almost as quickly as they appear, only fueling more whispers and suspicion. The rod isn't confined to small towns. In Guangzhou's Huadu district, a tower barely five years old began shedding tiles after a single spell of rain. Engineers flagged structural dangers, but repairs never came. The excuse? No money left in the budget. Online, people are calling it Tofu Dreg 2.0, reviving the haunting term from the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, when poorly built schools collapsed and buried students. This time there's no earthquake, only man-made fragility spreading like a disease. Developers have fallen silent. In Chengdu and Tianjin, cranes hang motionless over half-built shells. Weeds creep through concrete floors. Construction firms have gone bankrupt or simply disappeared. Abandoning entire districts to become ghost towns. Beijing's response? A shrug. The Ministry of Housing admits only two isolated cases, offers no numbers, and shifts the blame to bad weather or local management issues. The deeper systemic decay remains untouched. Meanwhile, anger is simmering. Residents are fighting back, sharing banned footage, forming online alliances, and even staging small protests to demand investigations and compensation. For many, it's no longer just about the buildings collapsing. It's about trust collapsing with them. Thailand indicts 23 individuals and entities, including a Chinese state-owned enterprise, after Bangkok building collapses Thai prosecutors on Thursday on August 7, including a Thai construction tycoon and a Chinese state-owned enterprise. They are accused of construction violations that led to the collapse of the National Audit Office building in Bangkok during the powerful Myanmar earthquake, killing at least 89 people, mostly construction workers. On March 28, a 7.7 magnitude earthquake struck Myanmar, with tremors felt in Thailand. The 30-story National Audit Office building in Bangkok subsequently collapsed. It was the only Thai building to collapse in the quake, raising questions among Thai authorities about the quality of the construction. The Attorney General's Office said Thursday that the case has been referred to a criminal court, with a ruling expected within months. Investigators have agreed to indict 23 individuals and legal entities for professional misconduct and falsification of documents, the Attorney General's Office said. The National Audit Office building was jointly constructed by Italian Thai Development, one of Thailand's largest construction companies, and China Railway 10th Engineering Group, a Thai subsidiary of the Chinese state-owned China Railway Group. The indictment names 16 individuals in seven companies, including representatives of some of the defendant companies who are charged with violating building regulations and causing death by negligence. According to a statement released Thursday by Sakasem Nisayak, a spokesman for the Attorney General's Office, those charged include Premchai Karnasutha, President of Italian Thai Development, and a senior executive of China Railway 10th Engineering Group, Thailand. Karnasutha and 14 others denied all charges when they were arrested by police in May in connection with the National Audit Office building collapse. Metropolitan Police Bureau MPB Director General Siam Boonsam previously stated that the investigation committee, after conducting a preliminary review and hearing witness testimony, found that the design of the collapsed building did not comply with departmental regulations or industry standards. Investigators discovered that the elevator shaft wall was not located at the center of the building, but rather toward the rear edge. This misalignment caused the structure's torsional center to shift away from its geometric center. When the building shook during an earthquake, the elevator shaft wall and foundation columns collapsed almost simultaneously, causing the entire building to plummet at high speed. Furthermore, cement samples extracted from the rubble did not meet standard requirements. An inspection of the rebar revealed deviations from the approved construction plan. The police medical examiner's office confirmed that the signature of a professional engineer appearing on official documents was forged and did not match the verified handwriting. Jobless and crushed by debt. The harsh reality for young couples in China. In today's China, even young couples are falling into the same nightmare. Both jobless, buried in mortgages, car loans, and the pressure to continue the family line. Some rely on parents or pretend to work to get by. But for many, the weight of debt is crushing. They scramble for any job just to survive, abandoning the idea of a decent life. Shanghai netizen Cai Cai graduated a decade ago. This year, she and her husband both lost their jobs. Depressed and anxious, she revealed that the 2.4 million yuan apartment they bought in Fengxian District has dropped by 1 million yuan, wiping out their savings. She called it the ox and horse trap. Mortgage, car loan, and family pressure. Their car loan alone is 7,000 yuan a month, a decision made back when the economy was good. Now her husband searches desperately for work while she has sent out tens of thousands of resumes without success, taking care of their children full time. The job market is terrible this year, she said. In Shenzhen, netizen Warmcat38 also lost her job. Her husband is unemployed, too, leaving them with no income and two children to feed. But at over 35, they discovered the only work left was delivering food or babysitting, jobs that barely keep them afloat. Another Shenzhen resident, Amber, posted that joblessness is even worse in big cities like Guangzhou. I lost my job on Monday. On Wednesday, my husband's company announced bankruptcy. We have rent in Shenzhen and a mortgage back home. The pressure is unbearable. The economy is collapsing. I can't imagine the future. Netizens say layoffs hit every sector. E-commerce, real estate, Internet companies. Friends earning 50,000 yuan a month are being laid off. Even those making 100,000 yuan are out of work. Big companies are axing whole projects. Mid-level managers are gone. Chongqing's Chao Chao described the job market as a scam. Over 10 hours a day, one day off a month, no insurance, all for 2,000 yuan. The better jobs pay 4,500 yuan, but demand impossible sales targets. Online, people joke that unemployed, middle-aged Chinese become triathletes, couriers, food delivery riders, DD drivers, or wear the three lucky charms, security guard, cleaner, nanny. But behind the humor lies despair. The domestic market is rotten, one wrote. Over 30, single, and childless? You'll be rejected for your age, experience, or education. Lawyer Wu told the Epoch Times that unemployment now spans nearly all traditional industries, while new sectors create only limited jobs. For people in their 40s and 50s, opportunities are almost zero. He warns the young, avoid big debts and mortgages. Economic downturns in China won't last one or two years. They could last decades. Professor Jie Tian from the University of South Carolina says double unemployment in one household is rare in normal countries, except in a severe recession. The Chinese economy is likely in a deep recession. No matter how the CCP hides it, unemployment is impossible to disguise. He points to another danger, debt. With salaries of 8,000 to 10,000 yuan, young people dare to borrow hundreds of thousands, even millions, for a house. In normal countries, banks would cap loans at three times your annual salary. This wouldn't happen elsewhere. In China, high housing prices, coupled with CCP propaganda, have led ordinary Chinese people to blindly believe that the economy is booming. This has fostered widespread over-optimism and the belief that real estate prices will keep rising, prompting many to take out large loans. High housing prices, high land prices, and high leverage ultimately benefit only the CCP elite, state-owned banks, and real estate tycoons. They've made a fortune, while middle-aged Chinese are now trapped. Those born in the 1980s and 1990s, the backbone of society, are the hardest hit, said Jie Tian. Fake work companies booming. Since the start of this year, companies specializing in providing fake workspaces for unemployed people have appeared in cities across China, including Beijing, Chongqing, Shenzhen, and Harbin. They charge 30 RMB per day and let people stay to study, sleep, or even attend remote interviews. One owner says they are almost fully booked every day. Chen Yingjian, founder of Hangzhou's You Fake Work Company, said that 60% of those who come to pretend work are actually starting businesses. They need the space and atmosphere. They're not the lie-flat type, but simply haven't found their niche yet. Fake work isn't about deceiving yourself. It's about finding a better version of yourself. Netizens commented, Some people feel unwanted when unemployed. Having this place at least gives them somewhere to hide. Where there's supply, there's demand. You've finally figured out 361 out of 360 professions. Lawyer Wu believes the popularity of fake work companies stems from a clear market reality. Where there's demand, there's supply. Unemployment in China is severe, and incomes are falling. With reduced business volume, unit prices are also dropping. Employment opportunities are rapidly disappearing. Young people fresh out of college can live off their parents, not marry, and not have children. But people in their 30s, 40s, and 50s with families, children, and debt can't afford to live that way. They can only lower their standard of living, for example, by cutting flexible expenses by 30% to 50%, he said. Jie Tian noted that unemployment exists in every society, and some people, unwilling to reveal their situation, will inevitably pretend to work. Japan experienced a similar phenomenon during its economic crisis in the 1970s and 1980s. People would dress in suits every morning, grab their briefcases, and go to work, spending the day in parks or other places while desperately job hunting before returning home. But it never became a major social phenomenon. However, the rise of such companies in China indicates that the number of unemployed people is already huge. The fact that these companies can even offer such services is tragic, suggesting the number of people pretending to work has reached a significant scale and that unemployment has become a serious problem. In June 2023, the official urban youth unemployment rate reached a record high of 21.3%. However, the public believes the official figure covering only the urban non-student population significantly understates the true level. Zhang Dandan, associate professor of economics at Peking University, emphasized that if those who have given up job hunting and are not actively seeking work were also included, the youth unemployment rate could be as high as 46.5%.