Korean Job Discussion Forums

mullethunter · Posted: Wed Jun 29, 2005 4:18 am Post subject: exactly 10 years ago today....

was talking to my neighbour this evening, and complaining about the crap job the construction workers did on our villa, when she told me that today is the tenth anniversary of the sampoong department store collapse. i had no idea Shocked

my question is this; have there been any improvements in building codes? after seeing how construction is done around here, including my place, i suspect not too much has changed Mad

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bourquetheman · Joined: 18 Aug 2003 Location: Suwon

Not to let the construction company off the hook but I heard that what happened was after the building had been built, the dept. store wanted more space so they started knocking out the support pillars that were in place. This resulted with the ultimate collapse. At least that's what I heard.

Captain Corea · Joined: 28 Feb 2005 Location: Seoul

I heard it was poor quality steel and concrete mixtures.

Derrek · Joined: 15 Jan 2003

How many died in that?

Smee · Joined: 24 Dec 2004 Location: Jeollanam-do

501 or 502, depending where you ask.

Here's an interesting take:
http://www.hazardcards.com/card.php?id=8

jajdude · Joined: 18 Jan 2003

I heard about that tragedy even before arrival, back in 1997.

Never got the details though.

Derrek · Joined: 15 Jan 2003

From the same article: "Mr. Joon was convicted seven and a half years in prison and twelve of the officials, as well as some engineers, were sentenced to prison. "

So he's out now.

rok_the-boat · Joined: 24 Jan 2004

I was here when the dept' store collapsed and followed the story as close as I could as I used to go there to eat. I say as close as I could because there was lots of misinformation.

My take is this: There had been previous construction - an added floor, but that was not the immediate problem. The direct cause was moving a large water tank on the roof. They drained it, moved it, and started filling it up. Of course, they moved it to a place where structurally, it was not supposed to be, and those tanks are very heavy indeed. That was what I read immediately afterwards but it seemed to 'disappear' once the additional floor story was discovered.

And yes, inspection revealed inferior cement - duff sand (for those not in the know, there are many kinds of sand and the beach variety is not the best for building - indeed, there is one UK company that was famous for selling sand to the Arabs - I digress). One reporter raised the obvious question - Who built it and what else have they built? - of course, that story quickly disappeared, but not before locals discovered that, yup, their appartments had been built by that same company ...

And I bet that company is still in business dealing in the same sand ...

simone · Joined: 15 Jan 2003 Location: Now Mostly @ Home

There was a great series on the Learning Channel we'd watch when we were in Canada this past year: "Countdown to disaster" or something like that. It would count forwards to the moment of awful events, like the Sarin gas attack in the Tokyo subway, the Sampoong collapse... and so on.

It was freaky, actually, to see such a well-documented play by play. Shoddy materials, changes in the design during construction, and a huge water tank in the wrong place on the roof all contributed. And yes, all the $%^$% in suits managed to get out long before it happened, without a word to the shoppers and lower-ranking employees.

Simone