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The Sampoong Group began construction of the Sampoong Department Store in 1987 over a tract of land previously used as a landfill. Originally designed as an office building with four floors, Lee Joon, the future chairman of the building, redesigned the building as a large department store later on during its construction. This involved cutting away a number of support columns in order to permit the installation of escalators. When the initial contractors refused to carry out these changes, Lee ignored and fired them and hired his own building company to construct the building. The building was completed in late 1989, and the Sampoong Department Store opened to the public on July 7, 1990, attracting an estimated 40,000 people per day during the building's five years in service. The store consisted of a north wing and south wing, connected by an atrium. Later on, a fifth floor was added to the four-floor building, which was first planned to be a skating rink; the skating rink was added due to regulations that stopped the whole building from being used as a department store. Lee changed the original plan for the fifth floor to include eight restaurants. When a construction company tasked to complete the extension advised that the structure would not support another floor, they were once again fired, before another company finished the job. The restaurant floor also had a heated concrete base with hot water pipes going through it, as patrons sit on the ground of traditional Korean restaurants, which added a large extra load as a result of increasing the thickness of the concrete slab. In addition, the building's air conditioning unit was now installed on the roof, creating a load of four times the design limit. In April 1995, cracks began to appear in the ceiling of the south wing's fifth floor. During this period, the only response carried out by Lee and his management involved moving merchandise and stores from the top floor to the basement. On the morning of June 29, the number of cracks in the area increased dramatically, prompting managers to close the top floor and shut the air conditioning off. The store management failed to shut the building down or issue formal evacuation orders, as the number of customers in the building was unusually high, and the store was not intending to lose potential revenue for that day. However, the executives themselves had left the premises as a precaution. Civil engineering experts were also invited to inspect the structure, with a cursory check revealing that the building was at risk of collapse; the National Geographic documentary series Seconds From Disaster indicates that the facility's manager was examining the slab in one of the restaurants on the fifth floor, eight hours before the collapse, when, unknowingly, vibration from air conditioning was radiating through the cracks in the concrete columns and the floor opened up. Five hours before the collapse, the first of several loud bangs was emitted from the top floors, as the vibration in the air conditioning caused the cracks in the slabs to widen further. Amid customer reports of vibration, the air conditioning was turned off, but the cracks in the floors had already widened to 10 cm. At about 5:00 p.m. Korea Standard Time (UTC+9:00), the fourth floor ceiling began to sink, resulting in store workers blocking customer access to the fourth floor. According to Seconds From Disaster, the store was packed with shoppers 52 minutes before the collapse, but the owner did not close the store or carry out repairs at that time. When the building started to produce cracking sounds at about 5:50 p.m., workers began to sound alarm bells and evacuate customers. Around 5:57 p.m., the roof gave way, and the air conditioning unit crashed through into the already-overloaded fifth floor . The main columns, weakened to allow the insertion of the escalators, collapsed in turn, and the building's south wing pancaked into the basement. Within 20 seconds, all of the building's columns in the south wing gave way, trapping more than 1,500 people and killing 502. The disaster resulted in about 270 billion (approximately US$216 million) worth of property damage. Rescue crews were on the scene within minutes of the disaster, with cranes and other heavy equipment being brought in the next day. However, authorities announced that they would call off the rescue, due to the danger that the unstable remains of the store would come down, and many of the rescuers were at risk. Massive protests, especially from friends and relatives of those still missing somewhere underneath the rubble, compelled officials to continue looking for survivors, with the remains of the store being steadied by guide cables. After nearly a week, the focus was on removing the debris, though construction crews were careful to check for victims. Two days after the collapse, some officials said that anybody who was still in the building must have already died; therefore, further efforts would be made only towards "recovery" and not "rescue". This conflicts with other peoples' experience in different countries, which is that humans can survive much longer than it is commonly thought. Despite the sweltering heat, those who were not rescued in the immediate few days were able to avoid dehydration by drinking rainwater. This was demonstrated when the last survivor, 19-year-old Park Seung Hyun (; ), was pulled from the wreckage 17 days after the collapse with a few scratches. She said that she heard the sounds of survivors drowning in the fire department's deflation water. Shortly after the collapse, leaking gas was suspected as the probable cause, because two gas explosions had occurred elsewhere in the city earlier that year. However, fires amid the rubble were from burning automotive gasoline coming from crushed cars parked in the underground garage, whereas a gas explosion would have been a massive inferno. In addition, it was widely feared that there had been a terrorist attack, perhaps similar to the Oklahoma City bombing in the U.S., but with North Korea as prime suspect. However, the fact the building collapsed downward instead of horizontally ruled out the this possibility. Initially, it was believed the building's poorly laid foundation, and the fact it was built on unstable ground, led to the failure. Investigation of the rubble revealed the building was constructed with a substandard concrete mix of cement and sea water and poorly reinforced concrete on the ceilings and walls. Further investigation revealed the building was built using a technique called "flat slab construction". Reinforced concrete buildings are often built using columns and beams, with the floor slab supported over the full length of the beams. "Flat slab construction" does not use beams, but supports the floor slab directly on the columns. The area of floor around the columns must be reinforced in order to carry the load; even then, if the columns are too narrow, they can punch through the slab. However, plans of the building showed the concrete columns were only 60cm in diameter, below the required 80cm. Worse still, the number of steel reinforcing bars embedded into the concrete was 8, half the required 16, giving the building only half its needed strength. Steel reinforcements intended to strengthen the concrete floor were placed at 10cm from the top instead of 5cm, decreasing the structure's strength by about another 20%. Ironically, one of the changes that contributed to the collapse was the installation of a safety feature. Fire shields were installed around all escalators to prevent the spread of fire from floor to floor, but in order to install them, the builders cut into the support columns, reducing their diameter further. The columns were no longer adequate to support the weight of the concrete slab, eventually puncturing the ceiling. These factors, along with the aforementioned addition of a fifth floor including restaurants and restaurant equipment, collectively contributed to the building's eventual failure. Although the original building design would have been more than twice as strong as needed to remain erect, the flawed structure managed to stand for five years. Later, investigators found the direct cause of the collapse, known as the "trigger" or tipping point; they discovered it in the building's history. It was revealed that the building's three rooftop air-conditioning units had been moved in 1993 due to noise complaints from neighbours on the east side of the building. The building's managers admitted they were moved, noticing cracks on the roof, but instead of lifting them with a crane, the units were put on rollers and dragged across the roof, further destabilizing the surface due to each unit's immense weight. Cracks formed in the roof slabs and the main support columns were forced downward; column 5e took a direct hit, forming cracks in the position connected to the fifth-floor restaurants. Another issue attributed to the air conditioning units came from survivor accounts of the building vibrating. Over the course of two years, each time the air conditioners were switched on, vibrations radiated through the cracks, reaching the supporting columns and widening the cracks. On the day of the tragedy, although the units were shut off, it was too late; the structure had suffered irreversible damage, and column 5e gave way. Lee Joon was charged for criminal negligence and received a prison sentence of 10.5 years. However, Joon's sentence was reduced to seven years on appeal in April 1996. Joon died of his health complications on October 4, 2003 11:10 AM (Seoul local time), a few days after being discharged, relating to heart failure, high blood pressure and diabetes. His son, Lee Han-Sang, the store's president, who is now working for religious causes in Mongolia, faced seven years for accidental homicide and corruption. City officials, namely Lee Chung-Woo and Hwang Chol-Min, dispatched to oversee the construction of the building were also found to have been bribed into concealing the illegal changes and poor construction of the building. As a result, the participating officials, including a former chief administrator of the Seocho-gu district, were also jailed for their part. Other parties sentenced included a number of Sampoong Department Store executives and the building company responsible for completing the building. The settlement involved 3,293 cases, totaling 375,800,000,000 Won (close to $350,000,000 USD). The former Chaebol Lee family was stripped of all of their possessions and assets to cover the costs. General reaction and nationwide building review The initial reaction was absolute public outrage, that led to months of demonstration on the streets. The disaster then later led to skepticism and fears regarding safety standards on other engineering projects undertaken as South Korea experienced an economic boom during the 1980s and 1990s, and resulted in a review of South Korean safety regulations; the incident also revealed the level of corruption among city officials, who were willing to accept payoffs with little regard for public safety. Park Chan-Wook depicted the greed capitalizing on the tragedy in his 1999 short film Judgement. The Sampoong Department Store collapse was depicted in the 2006 film, Traces of Love. It was also portrayed in a Blueprint for Disaster episode, as well as a Seconds from Disaster episode. Seconds From Disaster indicates that the fifth floor slab and roof were the first to collapse, causing the air conditioning units to fall through the structure Seconds From Disaster: "Superstore Collapse" (September 20, 2006; Season 3, Episode 11). The Korea Times: The Dawn of Modern Korea - Collapse of Sampoong Department Store A National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) article on the Sampoong Disaster Sampoong Department Store Collapse, a student project from the Frankfurt International School Coordinates: 372956 1270047 / 37.49889N 127.01306E / 37.49889; 127.01306 Categories: 1995 disasters 1995 in South Korea Collapsed buildings Disasters in South Korea History of Seoul We are high quality suppliers, our products such as Digital Voice Recorder Pen Manufacturer , China HDD Players for oversee buyer. To know more, please visits Quran Read Pen.
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