Still Standing: The Building that suggests that WTC 7 Was Imploded
Paul Joseph Watson
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
http://www.propagandamatrix.com/articles/february2009/021009_still_standing.htm
New videos highlight vivid contrast of Mandarin Oriental Hotel fire to fires in WTC 7 before its free fall collapse

Fire literally consumes the Mandarin Hotel in Beijing with no collapse.
9/11 truth debunkers are in a bind as to how to respond to the Beijing skyscraper fire because of the building’s similarity in size to Building 7 and the gargantuan fire damage it suffered in comparison with the limited “office fires” witnessed in WTC 7. The Mandarin Oriental Hotel is over 500 feet tall, just 100 feet short of the height of WTC 7.
The fires that consumed the Beijing building were on a completely different scale to those witnessed on 9/11, with the flames so violent and widespread that they masked almost the entire view of the building.
The best debunkers have come up with seems to be the false notion that the fires caused a partial collapse by making the building “lean”. This is of course complete baloney because the facade of the building was designed to appear as if it was leaning in the first place, as the image below highlights, with shots before and after the fire.
Since the Beijing building was still under construction, sprinkler systems had not been installed, providing another similarity to WTC 7, in which sprinkler systems malfunctioned before its collapse. The Mandarin Oriental Hotel was also a steel-framed building with a concrete core and may even have included steel salvaged from the debris of the twin towers and WTC 7 that was hastily shipped off to China shortly after 9/11.
How can any rational thinking person watch those two videos and lend any credence whatsoever to NIST’s claim that “thermal expansion” could have brought down WTC 7 into its own footprint, whereas the dramatic inferno that totally consumed the Beijing building had little structural effect whatsoever?
Apparently forgetting NIST’s newly invented “thermal expansion” theory, a scientific discovery that presumably has replaced the laws of physics, this Chinese news correspondent stands perilously close to the building completely unaware that since 9/11, all buildings that suffer minor fires, never mind towering infernos such as this, must collapse within 7 seconds into their own footprint.
9/11 truth debunking websites have so far been silent on the Mandarin Oriental Hotel fire and are likely to remain so. Yesterday’s fire serves to reinforce facts and not the fairy tales that the official 9/11 story is based around – namely that fire cannot weaken or melt steel to the point where a building collapses at free fall speed into its own footprint, without the aid of explosives.
The fire was remarkable in that it apparently spread throughout the bilding. This indicated grave deficiencies in compartmentation by firewalls and fire barrier floors. The fact that the building did not collapse indicates fire resistant construction such as reinforced concrete construction not steel and concete composite flooring.
I am a “truther” (though I hate that word), but have been debating this very issue with a mate. he explains that WTC7 was made with A36-rated steel, whereas the the Mandarain Oriental (he insists, without proof) was constructed with higher-grade steel (twice as strong, according to him). If he is correct, that would give the debunkers the excuse for which they are looking. Though, A36-rated steel is not “weak”, and it remains absurd to suggest that a building constructed with A36-rated steel would collapse SYMETRICALLY, and within 7 seconds, due to office fires alone (as NIST has concluded).
Complete and utter nonsense. All strucral steel is virtually identicle in the western world and consistantly worse in 3rd world countries..
Personally as a physicist, I don’t really care much about the issue of the fires and the steel.. The buildings fell at (or very close to) freefall speed and that is absolutely, completely, and inagueably impossible…