Its concrete tower blocks were crumbling, the peasant housing like slums, and the infrastructure chronically rundown.

BBC: New horizons in Kazakhstan

Foreboding council estates and concrete tower blocks overlook rundown high streets full of fried chicken shops and stalls offering knock-off mobile phones.

BBC: London's art attack

After the 1968 Ronan Point tower block partial collapse in London, in which four people died, new British Standard Structural Design Codes for concrete were introduced to prevent it happening again.

BBC: WTC collapse forces skyscraper rethink