Sampoong SuperstoreThe collapse of the Sampoong Superstore in Seoul, South Korea, represents an example of a structural collapse attributed in large part to corruption. The Sampoong department store opened in December 1989. It was a nine-story building with four basement floors and five above grade. The building was laid out in two wings (north and south) connected by an atrium lobby. By the mid-1990s the store's sales amounted to more than half a million U.S. dollars a day (Wearne 2000, pp. 99-100). Unfortunately, the store had been built on a landfill site that was poorly suited to such a large structure. Woosung Construction built the foundation and basement and then passed the project on to Sampoong's in-house contractors. Woosung had apparently resisted some proposed changes to the building plans, such as the addition of the fifth floor (Wearne 2000, p. 100). Sampoong made significant changes to the structure. The most important was the conversion of the original use as an office block to that of a department store. Other changes included changing the upper floor from a roller-skating rink to a traditional Korean restaurant. Stricter standards had to be met for fire, air conditioning, and evacuation. Although the structure apparently met all building code requirements, the revised design was radically different from the original (Wearne 2000, p. 100). The building was put into service. "For five and a half years business thrived. In June 1995 the store passed a regular safety inspection. But within days there were signs something was seriously wrong: cracks spidering up the walls in the restaurant area; water pouring through crevices in the ceiling. On June 29 structural engineers were called in to examine the building. They declared it unsafe. Company executives who met that afternoon decided otherwise. They ordered the cracks on the fifth floor to be filled and instructed employees to move merchandise to the basement storage area "(Wearne 2000, p. 100). Some employees heard rumors of the structural damage and impending collapse but remained in their departments to work. At 6:00 p.m. on June 29, the center of the building collapsed, similar to a controlled implosion, in about 10 s. The five-story north wing, about 91 m (300 ft) long, fell into the basement, leaving only the façade standing (Wearne 2000, pp. 100-102). had become complacent. Twelve local building officials were found guilty of taking bribes of as much as $17. Wearne. entitled The Final White Book of Finding Out the Real Truth of the Collapse of the Sampoong Department Store. Collapse: When Buildings Fall Down. entitled Crooked Construction: Sampoong Superstore.. pp. Some survivors were found in the wreckage.S. A government survey of highrise structures found 14% were unsafe and needed to be rebuilt.000 (U. and only 2% met standards. 84% required repairs. pp. 2005 Explorer: Collapse . as well as earlier structural and construction failures. The public was outraged. The customers and employees had no time to run. (This book is a companion to The Learning Channel's television series "Collapse. The final report was delivered by the Seoul District Prosecutors Office. and his son Han-Sang Lee. 111-112). (2000).C. 99 113) in Chapter 5.Customers were concentrated in the basement and in the fifth-floor restaurant. In particular. the chairman of Sampoong. New York.and 7-year terms. equivalent) for approving changes and providing a provisional use certificate (Wearne 2000.com).tvbooks. the news that the senior executives had fled the building without warning others was disturbing. The overall death toll was 498 (Wearne 2000. P. The cause of the Sampoong collapse.") POSTED September 13. ASCE Press. (www. was not a technical issue as much as outright fraud. This case study is discussed in chapter 10 of the book Beyond Failure: Forensic Case Studies for Civil Engineers. 2002) was published in the Cement & Concrete Composites journal. protected by government regulation from outside competition. suggested a widespread pattern of corruption in the country's construction business. TV Books. The report on the collapse. and one was brought out 17 days after the collapse.L. respectively. L. Joon Lee. pp. Bribes were used to get around the usual government checks and balances that serve to protect public safety. A technical paper on the collapse entitled Lessons from the Sampoong Department Store Collapse (Gardner et al. were convicted and sent to prison for 10 1/2. The Korean construction industry. Norbert J. Delatte. This case study is discussed by Wearne (2000. 100-107). then. We dig deep into the histories of these buildings to discover why. came crashing down in a moment s notice.Bill Swift Associate Producer Taking buildings for granted The idea that a building s walls will stand up seems as safe a bet as gravity s pull or the sun s rising. from a gourmet grocery to high-end clothing and cosmetic boutiques. Many local Koreans. Collapses around the world The Sampoong Department store in Seoul. and in particular the city s movers and shakers. But should we? National Geographic Channel s Explorer takes a look at buildings around the world that despite having appeared structurally sound. . or schools are going to collapse on us as we go about our daily routines. Remains of the Sampoong Department Store. offices. It had everything under one roof. would drop by for Remains of the Sampoong Department Store. Most of us don t worry much about whether our apartments. their evening meals and errands. South Korea was one of the swankiest stores in town. some for years on end. supermarkets. Off to Seoul Despite its shocking death toll. A trip from one end of the city to the other can take up to two hours and parts of the journey can be made along a contiguous string of passages and buildings. We pulled out our magnifying glass to examine this disaster and two other collapses the Hyatt Regency in Kansas City Missouri considered the deadliest structural failure of a building in the United States and the recent Charles de Gaulle Airport collapse Terminal 2E in Paris. Not just a single floor or area. We arrived in Seoul. It is considered the worst structural collapse of a building in modern history. we had the help of our van driver Mr. So to find out what happened what made this seemingly sound building collapse without a moment s notice we decided to pay our own visit to where the disaster occurred. Luckily. the details of the Sampoong disaster are nearly undocumented in the US media. when in less than 20 seconds. South Korea saw foreign investments pouring in as the country surged economically. about one fifth of the country s population. Lee friend to many foreign journalists and celebrity to many locals. until the evening of June 29th. which he uses to declare a media emergency when escorting journalists on deadline. With the help of Mr. to navigate this urban infrastructure. . aided by a flashing light and bullhorn. terrorist act. we wove between the towering structures of Seoul relatively unscathed. Seoul s breathtaking skyline is dotted with magnificent skyscrapers and towers. Dubbed as one of the Tiger economies of Asia in the 1980s.That is. the mall came crashing down with an estimated 1. 1995. even hosting the Summer Olympic Games in 1988. The city is home to over 10 million Koreans. killing more than 500 people and injuring over 900. but five stories of the North wing pancaking into the four basements. The evening and morning traffic in today s Seoul could rival that of Los Angeles or New York City. or a wrecking ball in sight. The cars fly left and right as he forges his way through gridlock. France. South Korea in the spring of 2005. Yet one minute the department store was bustling with diners and shoppers and the next. producing the cosmopolitan Seoul we know today with its sprawling street mazes. bridges. There was no sign of a natural disaster. Many of the local police officers even seem sympathetic to his mission and let him through. Lee. This global attraction galvanized a building boom. all five floors were a heap of rubble. and skyscrapers.500 unsuspecting shoppers and employees inside. an employee at the Sampoong Department Store who was buried in the rubble for 17 days without food or water before she was found. an employee at the Sampoong Department Store who was buried in the rubble for 17 days without food or water before she was found. Ha was confident and composed. We met with a number of the collapse survivors and heard some amazing stories. One woman left a particular impression with me Mrs. letting us into their lives to record their stories. just before the Sampoong disaster. For our interview. The collapse had devastated her way of life. Or they re reluctant to add their stories to a list of other tragedies in Korea from the last decade a subway gas explosion and fire (set by a mental patient and killing over 120) in the southern city of Taegu in 2003 and the Songsu cantilever bridge collapse that caused dozens of casualties in 1994. the Koreans we spoke with were very kind. Seung-Hyeon Park. With an ironic twist of fate. He wasn t going to let her back in. we couldn t include them all in the Explorer episode. but it wasn t until our cameras were turned off that she began to weep. . many of the Sampoong survivors struggled to speak frankly about their experiences the destruction and their personal loss. An actress portrays Ms. She was dropping a package off in the basement garage when a security guard told her the building was going to collapse. but Ms.Downplaying the adversity the tragedy and trauma For the most part. she had before. She was a thriving entrepreneur. Ha. At the same time. Perhaps reflecting on the trauma is too overwhelming. Ha was caught in the basement during the collapse and had to find her way out through one of the emergency stairwells. Seung-Hyeon Park. Unfortunately. however. She recalled the day s events with incredible repose. and lifestyle. The settlement she received following the disaster didn t come close to being enough to recoup the life. Ha insisted on re-entering the building to tell her employees to evacuate. her employees narrowly escaped. running two very successful snack shops in the Sampoong building. but Ms. Ms. An actress portrays Ms. we had to create a realistic set for the re-creation and do it with the limited resources we ve got here at National Geographic. The Sampoong Department Store ( . Luckily among our staff.It s very difficult working on a story like this. to convey the sense of tragedy and trauma the survivors experienced. Instead. if the new policies are working. Seoul post-Sampoong? So what happened in Seoul after the Sampoong disaster? The department store owners and the affiliated government officials were indicted. You struggle to tread the line of being a good journalist and asking the difficult questions. It took real creativity and a lot of teamwork. This involved cutting away a number of support columns in order to install escalators. There was indeed a call for tighter regulations and oversight of the building codes and those who enforce them. through a re-creation of the scene. memorializing the 10th anniversary of the disaster. particularly in a foreign culture. painters. it was changed to a large department store during its construction by Lee Joon. 1995 in the Seocho-gu district of Seoul. however. A Hollywood backlot with an earthquake set would have been helpful to shoot these scenes. South Korea. Obviously. The Sampoong Group began construction of the Sampoong Department Store in 1987 over a tract of land previously used as a landfill. but with a crew of carpenters. Originally designed as an office building with four floors. . we had someone whose father s a Hollywood set designer and happened to be coming to town. we managed to re-create a Korean disaster here in Washington. the future chairman of the building. interns. while respecting the cultural sensibilities of privacy and the intimacy of tragedy and trauma. staff members and friends all joined together. Lee ignored and fired them and hired his own building company for the construction. The collapse is the largest peacetime disaster in South Korean history 501 people died and 937 were injured. Recent newspaper articles. It s not certain. there weren t any cameras filming on the day of the collapse or recording underneath the debris as survivor Seung-Hyeon Park awaited rescue. When the original contractors refused to carry out these changes. How to tell the story We wanted our viewers to get a sense of what things were really like on the day of the collapse. ) collapse was a structural failure that occurred on June 29. decry the lack of enforcement of the legal codes instituted since then. We won't give away his secrets. which added a large extra load due to the increase in thickness of the concrete slab. and another company finished the job. which was first planned to be a skating rink to comply with zoning regulations that prevented the whole building from being used as a department store. the only response by Lee and his management staff involved moving merchandise and stores from the top floor to the basement. 1990. when. The store consisted of north and south wings. and the Sampoong Department Store opened to the public on July 7. prompting managers to close the top floor and shut the air conditioning off. attracting an estimated 40.000 people per day during the building's five years of existence. In addition. The store management failed to shut the building down or issue formal evacuation orders. with a cursory check revealing that the building was at risk of collapse. cracks began to appear in the ceiling of the south wing's fifth floor. creating a load of four times the design limit. a fifth floor was added. Civil engineering experts were invited to inspect the structure. [edit] Collapse In April 1995. However. 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. as patrons sit on the ground of traditional Korean restaurants. During this period. vibration from air conditioning was radiating through the cracks in the concrete columns and the floor opened up. as the number of customers in the building was unusually high. connected by an atrium. eight hours before the collapse. and they did not want to lose the day's revenue. The restaurant floor also had a heated concrete base with hot water pipes going through it. unknowingly. they were fired. . On the morning of June 29. the number of cracks in the area increased dramatically. the executives themselves left the premises as a precaution. Later on. When a construction company tasked to complete the extension advised that the structure would not support another floor. Lee changed the original plan for the fifth floor to include eight restaurants instead. the building's air conditioning unit was installed on the roof.The building was completed in late 1989. the store was packed with shoppers 52 minutes before the collapse. Within 20 seconds. When the building started to produce cracking sounds at about 5:50 p. Korea Standard Time (UTC+9:00).m. Massive protests. especially from friends and relatives of those still missing. After nearly a week. Despite the sweltering . the focus was on removing the debris. The disaster resulted in about 270 billion (approximately US$216 million) worth of property damage. some officials said that anybody who was still in the building must have already died. resulting in store workers blocking customer access to the fourth floor. but the owner did not close the store or carry out repairs at that time. the air conditioning was turned off.. but by then it was too late. though construction crews were careful to check for victims. trapping more than 1. This conflicts with other people's experience that people can survive much longer. [edit] Aftermath [edit] Rescue and recovery Rescue crews were on the scene within minutes of the disaster. as the vibration of the air conditioning caused the cracks in the slabs to widen further. Around 5:57 p. According to Seconds From Disaster. due to the danger that the unstable remains of the store could come down. the first of several loud bangs was heard emanating from the top floors. with the remains of the store being steadied by guide cables.. with cranes and other heavy equipment being brought in the next day. compelled officials to continue looking for survivors. therefore.m. the fourth floor ceiling began to sink.[1] The main columns.m. but the cracks in the floors had already widened to 10 cm.500 people and killing 501.Five hours before the collapse. At about 5:00 p. However. and the building's south wing pancaked into the basement. and the air conditioning unit crashed through into the alreadyoverloaded fifth floor. weakened to allow the insertion of the escalators. all of the building's columns in the south wing gave way. Amid customer reports of vibration. Two days after the collapse. further efforts would be made only towards "recovery" and not "rescue". workers began to sound alarms and evacuate the building. collapsed in turn. and many of the rescuers would be at risk. the roof gave way. authorities announced that they would call off the rescue. reducing their diameter further. However.heat. 19-year-old Park Seung Hyun ( . those who were not rescued in the first few days were able to avoid dehydration by drinking rainwater. Steel reinforcements intended to strengthen the concrete floor were placed 10 cm from the top instead of 5 cm. it was believed the building's poorly-laid foundation. whereas a gas explosion would have been a massive inferno. not the required 16. However. [edit] Investigation Shortly after the collapse. "Flat slab construction" does not use beams. However. with North Korea as the prime suspect. and the fact it was built on unstable ground. but supports the floor slab directly on the columns. plans of the building showed the concrete columns were only 60 cm in diameter. Fire shields were installed around all escalators to prevent the spread of fire from floor to floor. Initially. even then. The area of floor around the columns must be reinforced in order to carry the load. the number of steel reinforcing bars embedded into the concrete was 8. fires amid the rubble were from burning automotive gasoline coming from crushed cars parked in the underground garage. The last to be rescued. they can punch through the slab. with the floor slab supported over the full length of the beams. Reinforced concrete buildings are often built using columns and beams. ). eventually puncturing the ceiling. decreasing the structure's strength by about another 20%. giving the building only half its needed strength. . Worse still. it was widely feared that there had been a terrorist attack. the fact the building collapsed downward instead of horizontally ruled out this possibility. but in order to install them. one of the changes that contributed to the collapse was the installation of a safety feature. leaking gas was suspected as the probable cause because two gas explosions had occurred elsewhere in the city that year. the builders cut into the support columns. She said that she heard the sounds of other survivors drowning in the fire department's deflation[clarification needed] water. if the columns are too narrow. was pulled from the wreckage 17 days after the collapse with a few scratches. Further investigation revealed the building was built using a technique called "flat slab construction". led to the failure. below the required 80 cm. The columns were no longer adequate to support the weight. Ironically. Investigation of the rubble revealed that substandard concrete mix of cement and sea water and poorly reinforced concrete was used for the ceilings and walls. In addition. Over the course of two years. vibrations radiated through the cracks. His son. Lee Han-Sang.[2] City officials Lee Chung-Woo and Hwang Chol-Min. were also found to have been bribed into concealing the illegal changes and poor construction. high blood pressure and diabetes. each time the air conditioners were switched on. However. the units were put on rollers and dragged across the roof. who is now working for religious causes in Mongolia.800. [edit] Trial Lee Joon was charged with criminal negligence and received a prison sentence of 10. forming cracks in the position connected to the fifth-floor restaurants. Joon's sentence was reduced to seven years on appeal in April 1996. but instead of lifting them with a crane.000. relating to heart failure. Although the original building design would have been more than twice as strong as needed to remain erect. On the day of the tragedy. were also jailed.000 Won (close to $350. column 5e took a direct hit.000 USD). 2003. including a former chief administrator of the Seocho-gu district. it was too late. and column 5e gave way. the participating officials. The settlement involved 3. the flawed structure managed to stand for five years. totaling 375. noticing cracks on the roof. investigators found the direct cause of the collapse. The former Chaebol Lee family was stripped of all of their possessions and assets to cover the costs. along with the addition of a fifth floor including restaurants and heavy restaurant equipment. in charge of overseeing the construction of the building.These factors. Joon died of health complications on October 4. collectively contributed to the building's eventual failure. reaching the supporting columns and widening the cracks. Later. the structure had suffered irreversible damage. As a result. a few days after being discharged. Another issue attributed to the air conditioning units came from survivor accounts of the building vibrating. the store's president. Other parties sentenced included a number of Sampoong Department Store executives and the company responsible for completing the building. faced seven years for accidental homicide and corruption. known as the "trigger" or tipping point.000. [edit] General reaction and nationwide building review . although the units were shut off.5 years. Cracks formed in the roof slabs and the main support columns were forced downward. 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. further destabilizing the surface due to each unit's immense weight. in the building's history. The building's managers admitted they were moved.293 cases. 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. . The disaster 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. that led to months of demonstration on the streets.The initial reaction was enormous public outrage.