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One point I'd make from an earlier thread on the topic -- it sounds like RAAC panels were used in a number of countries. It may be that the UK is particularly affected due to having quite a bit of rain -- it's moisture that does the damage.

But it may also be that the UK is being relatively-proactive. Almost all the articles I see talking about this are in the UK. I wasn't able to find articles elsewhere saying "yeah, we looked into this, but it's not an issue in our country because X".

Heh. Well, even if one takes a really hard-cynical position like that, it'd probably be preferable to have it fixed than ignored. I'm saying that the UK isn't unique in using it, but is unusual in the attention being paid to it.

predicted lifetime of 30 years

My understanding is that the reduced 30 year lifetime was something determined in the 1990s after the material had already been used in construction for some decades, that the short estimate was based on the rate of degradation observed. That is, the basic problem wasn't people intentionally choosing a material that they knew to have a short lifetime, but in a new, experimental material having some serious issues that weren't originally recognized when it started being used.

@tal @0x815 You might find it interesting to work from the opposite direction.
Look for schools or buildings being rebuilt or replaced, since 1990 or do, and then see how many of those had RAAC components.
IE the ros here is from not repairing and replacing, until an inconveniently large number of schools are collapsing or at large risk of collapsing, and the task exceeds the capacity of available labour, materials resources etc.

...

@tal @0x815 ...Whereas if someone had seen it coming in other countries thry might have said "how long until it is dangerous"..."right, we fix 10% per year, finishing the year before that."

Which wouldn't really generate news stories of the alarming exciting sort we have.

"Government replaces school building" Spokesman says "it was wearing out."