Foundation failure of structures is rare until the structure comes under the influence of groundwater. Lack of geotechnical field knowledge may lead the structures to collapse in a short duration just after construction. It is unfortunate that many failed structures in India are not reported because they are buried under administrative procedures. This practice has influenced the constructors to neglect the soil investigation process before planning and also ignore the national building bylaws so as to obtain a maximum built area to save some money. The current study discusses the forensic analysis of a building collapse that occurred in Bangalore and a review of foundation failure that occurred in a 13-storey building in Shanghai, China. The study consists of the location of a site, failure date, details of the structure, the casualties that occurred and general causes, geotechnical aspects and remedial measures to the failures, which would provide answers to several confusions like what went wrong, when, why, where, how and by whom the structure faced the issue. This study visualize a strong input to accelerate future designs and the importance of different civil engineering fields and expert op (Subramanian (2009) Rare Foundation Failure of a Building in Shanghai, China, NBM and CW Journal.) inions in construction and create awareness about soil investigation.