Daily News from New York, New York • 8

8 Saturday, April 25, 1987 DAILf fcEWS Order indicted WASHINGTON (News Bureau) Fifteen white 43M for trains A $43 million contract to buy 10 West German locomotives that can run on either electric or diesel power for the Long Island Rail Road and the Metro-North commuter line was announced yesterday by railroad officials. Under the contract with BBC Brown, Boveri all 10 locomotives are to be delivered within four years. line work set Work will start Monday on a $50 million repair project on the line between Brooklyn and Manhattan, Transit Authority officials said yesterday. The work includes replacing tracks, fixing structural girders and installing lights at 13 stations. Rush hour express service between 18th Ave.

and Kings Highway will be suspended for the duration of the project scheduled to be completed in 1990. Temporary platforms will be built at the Ditmas Ave. Bay Parkway, and Avenue and stations. VIEW TO A CHILLING SCENE: Neighbors watch rescue operation from the window of a nearby building. TOM MONASTER DAILY NEWS supremacist members of a neo-Nazi group called The Order were indicted yes terday in a plot to over throw the government that included killing Denver talk show host Alan Berg and attempting to kill a fed eral judge and an FBI agent The Justice Department said four of the defendants including a key member of The Order, Bruce Carroll Pierce, 32, "violently inter fered with Berg civil rights by gunning down the radio personality three years ago.

More sinkings WASHINGTON (News Bureau) Army Undersecretary James Ambrose yesterday admitted that 12 Bradley Fighting Vehicles have sunk during amphibious testing, nearly double the number previously reported. But Ambrose insisted that a dozen sinkings out of some 10,000 tests of the controversial Bradley was a good track record. The Army suspended amphibious operation of the Brad ley last week in the wake of two sinkings. p0 Indicted KNOXVILLE, Tenn. U.S.

Rep. Harold Ford was indicted yesterday on federal charges of bank, mail and tax fraud, along with four other men, including a banker awaiting sentencing on other charges. The 19-count indictment alleges that C.H. Butcher Jr. used loans from his banks to buy political influence from Ford, a Memphis Democrat known for turning out the city's black vote.

Athens blast ATHENS A bomb exploded yesterday next to a bus carrying U.S. military personnel in the Athens port of Piraeus, and police said 18 people, including 16 Americans, were injured. The blast occurred near the central market as the Greek military bus was heading to the Hellenikon Air Force Base near Ath- -ens, police said. Ban nullified JOHANNESBURG-The Natal province supreme court yesterday nullified the government's December censorship order, which some lawyers said may free journalists to report on unrest and police actions for the first time in 10 months. But some lawyers said the order may remain in effect during a government appeal.

If the government loses the appeal, it may ask Parliament to simply rewrite the Public Safety Act to maintain censorship. From Daily News bureau and wire service reports By RICHARD T. PtENCIAK Honors for News The Daily News and two of its employes have been awarded the 1987 excellence in journalism awards of the Society of the Silurians. The spot news award went to the paper for its team coverage of the suicide of Queens Borough President and borough Democratic Party boss Donald Manes as a web of corruption closed in on him. Mary Ann Giordano, police bureau chief, won the feature news award for her story about Police Officer Steven McDonald, 30, shot and paralyzed last July while trying to make an arrest And Editorial Page Editor Michael Pack- enham was cited for his se ries of editorials on politi cal corruption.

Awards will be made by the newspaper group at the Fifth Avenue Hotel May 21. No crane guilt A state appeals court has thrown out the conviction of Jerry Mik, the safety coordinator at the Manhattan East Side construction site where Brigitte Gerney was trapped under a fallen crane. Mik was found guilty in a nonjury trial on Dec. 19, 1985, of violating the city's safety code and was fined $2,500. But the Appellate Term of Supreme Court Thursday found Mik was not at the site during the accident because it was the lunch break and there was no evidence he "consciously and deliberately" al lowed the violation.

The three-member panel unan imously dismissed the charges. COLLAPSE FROM PAGE FIVE Iene torches rode cherry pickers above the wreckage. Carefully they cut the concrete free and snaked cables around it so a crane could lift the big chunks out Late yesterday, Assistant Secretary of Labor John Pen-dergrast on an inspection, promised all possible assistance in the rescue and in determining the cause of the collapse. "We will bring in specialists from anywhere in the country," he said. Already, these teams from Florida, California, Pennsylvania and New York are working with Connecticut rescuers: A three-person team from Dade County, that investigated earthquake damage in Mexico City and is considered expert in evacuation and building collapses.

From California, a team with a special heat-seeking infrared camera, another with a U.S. Mine Safety Administration geophone and another with dogs used in the Mexico City disaster. Members of the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration's New England regional office. Dogs from the Northeast Rescue Group in Pennsylvania, along with Connecticut State Police scent dogs. New York City Fire Department Hazardous Material Unit One.

Members of the Federal mine search and rescue unit William Lone, executive director of Delwood Development International, developers of the $17 million L'Ambiance Plaza project 13 stories of apartments atop a five-level parking garage-said it was "too early to talk Daily News Staff Writer The "lift-slab" technology used in building the L'Am-biance Plaza is tricky, and requires "due care in carrying out the construction," according to industry experts. "If been around for a couple of decades. It's been used all over the world, certainly a great deal in Europe," said Dr. Gene Corley, vice president of Construction Technology Laboratories of Skokie, 111. "But lift-slab construction has things connected with it that have to be watched carefully.

"It is not an extremely popular design. You need a designer very familiar with the technique and a contractor who can do it efficiently and safely. There aren't that many places around where that expertise exists," said Corley, whose firm conducted a technical investigation of the 63d St subway tunnel. Structural engineer Irwin Cantor of Manhattan agreed with Corley's assessment that lift-slab construction is "very sound" if used properly. "There are hundreds of these buildings in the United States," he said.

Still, both men noted the technology carries its own special set of potential problems, any one of which could have caused the L'Ambiance collapse: Uneven lifting of floors. When slabs are being lifted, the entire structure must be kept level, so as not to put pressure on the steel support columns. "The lifting operation is the most sensitive part of the construction process," said Cantor. "There is so little leeway." "We're not talking several feet We're talking several inches," added Corley. Authorities in Connecticut have stated they believe floors were being moved when the building collapsed.

Hydraulic failure. The hydraulic lift system must be designed to withstand a failure at one of the lift points. "If you drop the load at one column, the weight gets transferred to another column, which might not be able to handle it" explained Corley. If the hydraulic system failed on one column, it could have caused adjacent ones to overload and fail. "It would unzip like a zipper and come down," Corley said.

Temporary floor wedges. Lift-slab floors are fastened temporarily in construction. Only when all floors are in place are the joints welded together. In more conventional construction, concrete floors are built in forms on top of support columns, providing "a monolithic structure, with no joints to weld," said Corley..