"At around 5 AM, I heard a loud rumbling sound and was so scared I couldn't close my eyes. Now we dare not live in the building, we are anxious and really afraid the building might suddenly collapse," said Pan Guihua (pseudonym), who lives in Building 4 of Wantai Xingchen Residential Compound on Siping Road in Urumqi, on September 23.
Because uneven settlement of the building's foundation caused some walls to crack diagonally, the normal lives of 40 households in the building have been affected. They believe the building is tilting toward the southeast corner, so they are afraid to return home.
　　On September 23, the reporter saw in the compound that some owners had set up tents, preparing for the elderly and children to sleep in them at night. The wall at the entrance of Unit 3 of the building had many horizontal cracks, and the door frame was broken.
　　"The keys to this apartment were handed over at the end of 2010. In 2011, we found cracks and thought it was due to renovation. After an earthquake last year, many cracks suddenly appeared in the walls of the living room and other bedrooms, and we panicked," Pan Guihua said. What worried her most was that new cracks were still appearing. Pointing to a relatively wide crack at the entrance, she said: "This one appeared just this morning. While I was changing shoes at the door, I watched a crack slowly open, and I was so scared my legs went weak!"


　　The reporter learned that the residents reporting cracks in their homes are almost all in Units 3 and 4. Wei Jianguo, a resident of Unit 3, now rents a place elsewhere. He has been complaining about the housing issue since March last year. His home is the most seriously affected: the load-bearing wall near the corridor has been penetrated by cracks, many cracks in the apartment are wide enough to stuff more than a dozen sheets of white paper, and cracks crisscross the wall by the window.
　　From outside the building, the reporter saw a very wide crack between Units 2 and 3. Residents said this was caused by the building tilting toward the southeast corner. In the homes of residents in Units 3 and 4, the reporter felt the living rooms were slanted, and the floor tiles in a first-floor apartment had cracks. A resident on the 4th floor said: "I clearly feel the apartment is slanted. When I put a rolling pin on the table, it rolled right off."

　　Real estate developer begins reinforcing foundation
　　"We simply dare not live in this building now. We are all wage earners, and it would be very difficult for us to buy another home. Now that the building has such problems, what should we do?" Li Min said.
　　The owners said the developer should either compensate them with an apartment or buy back the building at market price. Even if it is reinforced now, they would not dare to live in it again.
　　The compound was developed by Xinjiang Wantai Real Estate Development Co., Ltd. The company's person in charge told the reporter that after receiving complaints from owners, they sent staff to inspect the site. To find out the cause of the cracks, in June this year they commissioned the Autonomous Region Product Quality Supervision and Inspection Station for Building Materials and Components to conduct an investigation and testing.
　　The appraisal report stated: "Some cracks are caused by material shrinkage and stress, while some diagonal cracks in walls are caused by uneven settlement of the foundation. The foundation of the project was soaked in water, causing collapsible settlement of the foundation soil below the original soil backfill compaction layer. There is uncompacted fill soil under the foundation at the southeast corner of Building 4, which produced relatively large additional settlement under water soaking, causing its foundation to crack and resulting in many cracks in the upper walls."
　　At present, after consultation with the first-floor owners of Units 3 and 4, the company's staff have begun foundation reinforcement.
　　The person in charge said they are preparing to communicate with the owners to reinforce the building's foundation and the cracks in the upper walls, and to bear one year's rent and all renovation costs for the five first-floor owners, as well as half a year's rent for the other 35 affected owners.