Yesterday, strange enough I switched to TV3 to watch National Geographic. Why I say strange is because I subscribe ASTRO and I have National Geographic Channel yet I seldom watch it. Anyway, back to the show. That night story was the incident about Sampoong Department Store breakdown in South Korea. Well, it shows some conflict inside, combines with engineering miscalculation that leads to 501 deaths.Besides, the show also brought a cameo scene of a young survivor in the mishap. She survived after 16 days being trapped in the rubbles. 16 DAYS!!!! Without any food and limited space to move in a concrete coffin but with abundance of sheer determination of will to live. So today I would like to highlight this case for us to review. Not because of terrorism or even natural disaster but it was all down to one man’s GREED that led to the worst civil engineering disaster in history.
Building overview
Construction of the Sampoong Department Store begun in 1989 over a tract of land previously used as a dump site. Originally designed as an office building with four floors, Lee Joon, the future owner and CEO of the building, redesigned the building as a department store later during construction. This involved cutting away a number of support columns in order to permit the installation of escalators. Mr. Joon decided to add an extra floor with a swimming pool. When the initial contractors refused to carry out these changes, Mr. Joon replied by giving them the pink slip and hired his own building company to construct the building.
The Sampoong Department Store was opened to the public on July 7, 1990, attracting an estimated 40,000 people a day during the building's five years in service. The store consisted of two wings, a north wing and south wing, connected by an atrium. The building was completed according to his wishes, without any reinforcement of the fifth floor. It was discovered after the accident that inferior concrete had been used by the engineering company as well as highly insufficient structural support.
Collapse
Despite its numerous structural problems, which were all known to Mr. Joon, the department store stood for six years. On April 1995, cracks begun appeared in the ceiling of the fifth floor, with tiny vibration even appreciable. Two days before the collapse, a worker noted a gas leak and recommended that the store be closed for repair. His request was denied. At the day of the collapse, the ceiling on the fifth floor started crumbling. During this period, the only response carried out by Joon and his management involved moving merchandise and stores from the top floor to the basement. In spite of a crumbling ceiling and a gas pipe leaking, Mr. Joon refused to evacuate the building. On June 29, amid concerns of the growing cracks on the ceiling, Joon allowed some of the executives and workers to leave but did not issued any evacuation of the building.
By that time, the cracks had grown larger, with water from the water tank above leaking though the fifth floor ceiling. At about 5 P.M., the forth floor ceiling begun to sink, prompting store workers to block customer access to the fourth and the fifth floor. However, when the building started to produce cracking sounds at about 5.50 P.M., workers begun to sound alarm bells and evacuate customers. By then, the roof failed, and the air conditioning unit crashed through into the already-overloaded fifth floor. The main columns, weakened to allow the insertion of the escalators, then collapsed in turn, and the whole building pan caked into the basement.
501 people were killed in the collapse – the last survivor was found 16 days after the initial collapse. It was initially thought that the poorly laid foundation and the fact that it was built on unstable ground led to the failure. However, it was traced to the poor construction due to changes to the design carried out by the Joon and his building company. Later investigation of the rubble revealed that the building was also constructed with an inferior concrete mix (cement and sea water) and insufficient amounts of reinforced steel rods on the ceilings and walls.
Fifth floor and air conditioning unit (here come the engineering)
Later on, a fifth floor was added to the building, which became a traditional Korean restaurant. As Koreans customarily sit on the floor to eat, the restaurant's floor had a heated concrete base which added a large extra load. In addition, the building's air conditioning unit was now installed on the roof, imposing a load on it four times its design limit. To make matters worse, amid complaints about noise from local residents, the air conditioning unit was moved across the roof from the back of the store to the front. Rather than using a crane, the air conditioning unit was simply pushed across the roof, heavily damaging the roof structure.
Trial
It was also found that city officials dispatched to oversee the construction of the building were bribed into mentioning none of the illegal changes and poor construction on the building. As a result, all of the convicted, including a former chief administrator of the Seocho-gu district, were charged with negligence and jailed. Joon received a seven and a half year sentence for his part, and his son, Lee Han-Sang, the store's president, faces seven years for the same charge. At that time Korea was addressing some severe problems with corruption, but unfortunately this process only dealt with the high ranking officials and therefore the construction of the department store was completed with the approval of corrupt junior officials. These were the officials who could have stopped the project. Conclusion I learnt a lot from this show that even my lecturer didn’t teach me. There are 2 quotes in this show that I find it very catchy.
1. When the building starts to talk, we must listen
2. When you are walking near a cliff, take every step you make carefully.
Building overview
Construction of the Sampoong Department Store begun in 1989 over a tract of land previously used as a dump site. Originally designed as an office building with four floors, Lee Joon, the future owner and CEO of the building, redesigned the building as a department store later during construction. This involved cutting away a number of support columns in order to permit the installation of escalators. Mr. Joon decided to add an extra floor with a swimming pool. When the initial contractors refused to carry out these changes, Mr. Joon replied by giving them the pink slip and hired his own building company to construct the building.The Sampoong Department Store was opened to the public on July 7, 1990, attracting an estimated 40,000 people a day during the building's five years in service. The store consisted of two wings, a north wing and south wing, connected by an atrium. The building was completed according to his wishes, without any reinforcement of the fifth floor. It was discovered after the accident that inferior concrete had been used by the engineering company as well as highly insufficient structural support.
Collapse
Despite its numerous structural problems, which were all known to Mr. Joon, the department store stood for six years. On April 1995, cracks begun appeared in the ceiling of the fifth floor, with tiny vibration even appreciable. Two days before the collapse, a worker noted a gas leak and recommended that the store be closed for repair. His request was denied. At the day of the collapse, the ceiling on the fifth floor started crumbling. During this period, the only response carried out by Joon and his management involved moving merchandise and stores from the top floor to the basement. In spite of a crumbling ceiling and a gas pipe leaking, Mr. Joon refused to evacuate the building. On June 29, amid concerns of the growing cracks on the ceiling, Joon allowed some of the executives and workers to leave but did not issued any evacuation of the building.By that time, the cracks had grown larger, with water from the water tank above leaking though the fifth floor ceiling. At about 5 P.M., the forth floor ceiling begun to sink, prompting store workers to block customer access to the fourth and the fifth floor. However, when the building started to produce cracking sounds at about 5.50 P.M., workers begun to sound alarm bells and evacuate customers. By then, the roof failed, and the air conditioning unit crashed through into the already-overloaded fifth floor. The main columns, weakened to allow the insertion of the escalators, then collapsed in turn, and the whole building pan caked into the basement.
501 people were killed in the collapse – the last survivor was found 16 days after the initial collapse. It was initially thought that the poorly laid foundation and the fact that it was built on unstable ground led to the failure. However, it was traced to the poor construction due to changes to the design carried out by the Joon and his building company. Later investigation of the rubble revealed that the building was also constructed with an inferior concrete mix (cement and sea water) and insufficient amounts of reinforced steel rods on the ceilings and walls.
Fifth floor and air conditioning unit (here come the engineering)
Later on, a fifth floor was added to the building, which became a traditional Korean restaurant. As Koreans customarily sit on the floor to eat, the restaurant's floor had a heated concrete base which added a large extra load. In addition, the building's air conditioning unit was now installed on the roof, imposing a load on it four times its design limit. To make matters worse, amid complaints about noise from local residents, the air conditioning unit was moved across the roof from the back of the store to the front. Rather than using a crane, the air conditioning unit was simply pushed across the roof, heavily damaging the roof structure.
Trial
It was also found that city officials dispatched to oversee the construction of the building were bribed into mentioning none of the illegal changes and poor construction on the building. As a result, all of the convicted, including a former chief administrator of the Seocho-gu district, were charged with negligence and jailed. Joon received a seven and a half year sentence for his part, and his son, Lee Han-Sang, the store's president, faces seven years for the same charge. At that time Korea was addressing some severe problems with corruption, but unfortunately this process only dealt with the high ranking officials and therefore the construction of the department store was completed with the approval of corrupt junior officials. These were the officials who could have stopped the project. Conclusion I learnt a lot from this show that even my lecturer didn’t teach me. There are 2 quotes in this show that I find it very catchy.
1. When the building starts to talk, we must listen
2. When you are walking near a cliff, take every step you make carefully.
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