Some flimsy buildings collapsed in piles of charred rubble.
"Severely punish the corruption in the tofu construction," read the other, a reference to flimsy buildings.
If anyone should be charged for deaths in earthquake zones, it's those who allow flimsy buildings to be built, whether through policy neglect or incompetence in construction.
Long before the disaster, a 1998 government report pointed to an increasing number of flimsy buildings vulnerable to such an earthquake.
(The slightly slumping, almost cartoonish quality of the houses can evoke Lyonel Feininger at his early best, but Mr. Mattison also points to the cheap, flimsy buildings of the region's company towns).
Although not directly in the path of the hurricane, the poorest nation in the Americas has confirmed 52 dead and at least a dozen more missing as flimsy buildings were engulfed in mudslides or swept out to sea by flood tides.
Many flimsy buildings were destroyed in the neighborhoods.
In a finding that lends credence to the FBI version of how the Branch Davidian compound was engulfed in flames, arson investigators on Monday said they believed followers of cult leader David Koresh set the fires that swept through the flimsy buildings, killing as many as 86 men, women and children.
From the time of its origin in England, the circus was often presented in a theatre setting, mostly in permanent or semipermanent buildings of flimsy construction.
It was unfortunate that the flimsy, temporary building in which Lotus housed its hospitality unit burned down, since the new buildings were just about the only new investment apparent in the track since Malaysia began hosting the race in 1999.
