In 1995, the capital of South Korea was not called Seoul at that time, but Seoul . In its most prosperous Gangnam District, there is a South Korean most luxurious shopping mall , Sanfeng Department Store. This shopping mall, which has only been open for five years, attracted a large number of high-income people in Gangnam District, with an average daily passenger flow of 40,000.
This mall is a symbol of the rapid economic development of South Korea in the 1990s, but a terrible accident occurred. It is also the biggest disaster in the peace period on Korean history , the most serious disaster in peacetime , and the reasons behind it are outrageous.
Sanfeng Department Store was originally in 1988 and was held by South Korea. The famous Seoul Olympics , so the entire South Korea, especially the capital Seoul, underwent large-scale development in the following years. In order to develop domestic enterprises, the South Korean government at that time prohibited international builders from bidding and building projects in South Korea. In this way, almost all large-scale buildings, were built by local Korean companies .
The rapid development of Seoul
Because there are too many projects assigned to them, these companies are developing projects at the fastest speed, which poses hidden dangers.
This The original site of Sanfeng Department Store was used to build a large apartment building. The foundation had been laid, but Li Jun, chairman of Sanfeng Group, who is in charge of the project, believes that the best shopping mall in South Korea should be built in such a good location to maximize the value of this land.
Original site should have been built on the original site
So he rebuilt on the original basis, but changing the apartment building to a shopping mall involves expanding the space and changing the structure. Li Jun also asked to add a floor, which is the fifth floor, as a large indoor ice rink of , , to attract the popularity of the mall.
Apartment building is converted into a shopping mall
But after seeing such changes, the project manager refused to execute it because the risk was too great, but Li Jun from Sanfeng Group ignored their warnings and fired them, and let his own shares complete the reconstruction.
During the reconstruction process, he canceled the 5th floor ice rink and changed it to 8 restaurants. Therefore, the completed building is a flat structure without beams and steel frames. This structure helps to quickly build the building, but this means that the building cannot transfer the load through the structure, and can only carry the weight by structural column . The weight of the mall is pressed on the columns. The
structural column not only needs to carry weights that exceed its design value, but also the structural column is also reduced from 80 cm to 60 cm at the request of Chairman Li Jun to install an escalator to create a larger space.
Escalator needs more space
After 2 years of rapid construction, Sanfeng Department Store opened on July 7, 1990 and held a grand opening ceremony. The official name of the mall is " Sanfeng Department Store ". It is located in the core area of Seoul. The exterior wall uses pink decorative board , which was unique at the time.
The mall was opened at the opening
The interior space of the mall is open, with multiple escalators leading to each floor, sells various luxury goods , many brands can only buy it here, and they also advertise on newspapers and TV, which has attracted more and more customers. From a commercial perspective, this is a successful case, and it has become the most lively shopping place in South Korea.
At that time, the best shopping mall in South Korea
Three giant air conditioning units were installed on the roof of the mall, which were responsible for the air conditioning circulation of the entire mall. These air conditioning units adopt the water circulation system . After adding water, each unit weighs 15 tons, and the three units have a total of 45 tons. This weight exceeds the design limit of the flat structure without steel bones . In other words, the ceiling on the fifth floor is completely supported by structural columns.
The air conditioning unit on the roof of the mall
And these air conditioners will emit huge noise and vibration after turning on. On the side close to the air conditioning unit of Sanfeng Department Store, there is an apartment building. Residents of the community went to the city hall many times to complain because the noise generated when these air conditioners are turned on makes them unbearable. The community next to
Finally, in 1993, the mall decided to move these air conditioning units to the other side, which did not have an apartment building on this side. Logically speaking, these air conditioning units should be lifted up and placed on the other side of the rooftop. However, in order to save money, the shopping mall directly installs the rollers at the bottom of these units, and then drags on the rooftop.
In this way, when the 45-ton air conditioner external unit presses over the floor, it puts huge pressure on the support on the 5th floor. What's more exaggerated is that since the 5th floor is covered and a large ice rink was originally built, the support columns were reduced. The limited support columns were not aligned with the support columns on the 1-4th floor. In this way, when the air conditioner drags on the rooftop, the load on the fifth floor can only be transmitted through the floor slab. This action is irreversible to the damage to the of the support column on the 5th floor. In the two years after
, the mall has never received any complaints, but this is the silence before the storm comes.
At 8 a.m. on June 29, 1995, the facilities manager of Sanfeng Department Store came to the office. He saw a note of on the table. The note was left by the security guard who was on duty the night before. The security guard said that at night he heard a strange crack sound coming from the roof of the mall.
So, the facility manager came to the rooftop to check. He saw the traces left by dragging the air conditioner external unit 2 years ago on the ground, but he did not notice anything else and went back.
By 10 am, the mall started to get a lot of people, and was Sunday . The mall had more people than before. On the 5th floor of the mall, there were eight restaurants, one of which was called "Chunyi Restaurant", which was a traditional Korean dish. Shortly after the facility manager returned to the office, the restaurant employee called him up and said that there were many cracks around the pillar of in the restaurant.
The crack scene was taken at that time
The manager immediately put a warning sign on "construction" and the restaurant was closed at that time. The restaurant employees got off work before they even went to get off work, but what these employees didn't know was that they escaped.
At noon, some employees on the fourth floor reported to the manager that there were cracks on the ceiling and walls . These cracks were cracks on the columns on the 5th floor. They were transmitted from the 5th floor to the 4th floor in a few hours. The facility manager began to realize the seriousness of the problem, and he immediately fed the problem to the high-rise buildings of the mall.
The real shot at that time
The senior staff after an emergency meeting decided to close the entire 5th floor and moved some heavy objects on the 5th floor to the 4th floor. They fed the report back to Li Jun, chairman of Sanfeng Group. Li Jun first asked about the traffic of the mall that day, and then decided to continue operating because he did not want to lose the turnover of the mall. He just called a civil engineering expert to come to the mall for inspection.
Chairman Li Jun
At 2 pm, it was the hot time at the end of June, several air conditioners on the rooftop of the mall were operating at full power. The facility manager believed that the vibration of the air conditioner may be the cause of the cracks in the column, so turned off the air conditioner and posted a broadcast saying that the air conditioner was being repaired and the mall suddenly lost air conditioner. Many customers complained that it was too hot, and therefore, many customers left the mall.
Some customers left the mall
At 3 pm, the civil engineering expert came to the closed floor on the 5th floor. After roughly observing the cracks in the pillars, he told the facility manager that the mall was at risk of collapse. The senior management of the mall held another emergency meeting. The directors suggested to Li Jun that all the personnel were evacuated, but Li Jun was very angry and refused to do so. However, as a plan, he and the senior management of the mall evacuated the mall .
High-level managers left the mall
He didn't even tell his daughter-in-law about the imminent danger, Zhu Qingying, who is also one of the mall employees.
At 5:50 pm, customers shopping in the mall felt a terrifying shock. Many people thought it had been a quake, and then the ceiling began to sink, various objects fell, and the mall began to be in chaos.
People realize that the collapse of the mall is irreversible. The mall sounded the alarm, people began to crowd towards the door, and the escalator was full of customers.
However, after the alarm in the mall sounded, in just 2 minutes, the entire building collapsed, and customers and employees who had no time to escape were instantly crushed into the ruins.
The building began to collapse from top to bottom
After a huge smoke and dust, people saw clearly that all the floors on the south wing of the building collapsed, leaving only the shaking floors on both sides. It was estimated that more than 1,500 people were pressed down below .
The tragic scene after the collapse of the building (real shot)
After the accident, due to the city center, rescuers arrived at the scene within a few minutes, but facing the rubble at the scene, everyone was shocked. The 5th floor of the entire building, including the underground parking garage, collapsed. In this situation, it was almost impossible for people to survive.
a piece of ruins
They brought cranes and heavy excavation equipment. Because they were worried that the floors on both sides would collapse again, the mayor at that time announced that they would stop the rescue of , but the families of the victims took to the streets to protest, and the government had to fix the floors on both sides with steel cable and then continue to rescue.
Sure enough, rescue makes sense. Two days ago, more than 200 people were rescued from the ruins. Most of them were people who had run out of the mall but were pressed by the falling stone slabs, including Chairman Sanfeng's daughter-in-law. She was rescued the next day of the accident and was only slightly injured.
several days after
, no survivors were found, so some officials told the media that there would be no survivors, but 9 days later, a rescued man was found, and 12 days later, another person was rescued. 17 days later, the last rescued person in appeared.
Rescue continues
She is a
Little Girl Rescue Real Scene
The last accident caused
The investigation of this accident was carried out by the School of Engineering of Tan Kwok University. They first suspected that it was a natural gas leak because a fire was lit at the scene at that time, but finally found that the fires were caused by cars parked in the underground garage, and the flames of the gas explosion would be much larger. After
, they doubted whether they had been attacked. After all, North Korea and South Korea were very tense at that time, but this possibility was quickly ruled out.
In the end, the investigators found the reason for the collapse of the building, which was the collapse caused by structural problems in the shopping mall. The building not only had illegal reconstruction, but its foundation was unstable. In addition, the building also used unqualified cement and non-compliant reinforced concrete. The biggest problem was that the building used "flat-slab construction method" without beam skeleton .
That is to say, the support column is not supported on the beam, but on the cement board . There are only 8 steel bars in the column, rather than the necessary 16, which reduces the strength of the column by half, the diameter of the column is reduced from 80 cm to 60 cm, and the strength of the structure is reduced by 20%.
Investigators investigated the "trigger point" of building collapse, that is, critical point . This is the damage to the supporting columns of the building when the three air-conditioning units on the roof of the mall were dragged two years ago. The huge vibration when the air-conditioning units started up made these cracks grow little by little until the critical value reaches and the building collapses.
Any of these reasons does not violate the rules, and the mall will not collapse so quickly. Moreover, the stubborn behavior of the senior management of Sanfeng Department Store, especially Chairman Li Jun, accelerated the occurrence of this tragedy, .
At this time, the senior executives of Sanfeng Department Store, especially the chairman of Li Jun, were very clear about the cause of the accident. They were trying to find a way to shirk it. Finally, the South Korean procuratorate arrested Li Jun in accordance with the law. He was sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment by 1. Finally, Li Jun appealed that the sentence was reduced to 7 and a half years. He finished serving his sentence and was released from prison in 2003, but a few months later, he died of illness.
Li Jun was arrested
. Li Jun's son, as a director of the mall and CEO of Sanfeng Department Store, insisted on implementing Li Jun's decision not to stop business despite the opposition of other directors, was considered to be intentional homicide. The two were sentenced to 7 and a half years in prison by . After being released from prison, Li Jun's son left South Korea and lived in seclusion in Mongolia.
Li Jun's son (left)
and the investigation found that Sanfeng Department Store had huge interests in collusion with local officials during the reconstruction process. 21 officials in Ruicao District were sentenced to 3 years to 10 years in prison.
Two months after the accident, Li Jun and his son used all their property to compensate the families of the victims. Each family member of the victims had to pay an average of US$220,000 . Sanfeng Group sold all assets to compensate the victims. After that, Sanfeng Group no longer existed. No matter how many sales miracles the Sanfeng Department Store had created, everything was returned to zero after an accident.
The accident caused great public outrage, and people took to the streets for several months of demonstrations. As a result, the South Korean government began to establish a new building safety law, conducting strict inspections on all public buildings across the country. Finally, it was found that only 2% of were fully qualified , and the remaining buildings were demolished and reinforced.
South Korea's Sanfeng incident also shows that while economic development , we must not only pay attention to speed, but also quality. Any huge accident comes from people. If life is put first, many accidents can be avoided.
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