On the evening of June 29, 1995, after a loud bang, the Sanfeng Department Store in Gangnam Seoke District, Seoul, South Korea collapsed from top to bottom. After 20 seconds, the 5-story building turned into ruins.
Sanfeng Department Store was originally a landfill, but because its geographical location is located in the prime location of Seoul - Gangnam , it still attracted a large amount of capital in that year. Construction began in 1987, and the project was completed in the second half of 1989. By the time Sanfeng Department Store officially started operating on July 7, 1990, it had transformed into a leading large department store in Korea at that time with its high-end and atmospheric decoration and avant-garde business philosophy. In that rich area, it can receive 40,000 people a day, with an average daily turnover of more than $500,000. However, what people did not expect was that from the moment Sanfeng Department Store was built, it laid the foreshadowing for the subsequent tragedy.
1995 On June 29, 1995, when the facilities manager of Sanfeng Department Store came to work in the morning, he saw a note left by the security guard to him, reminding him that the building had made abnormal noises in the early morning, and cracks appeared on the roof. But the facility manager did not agree at this time. He knew that these cracks had occurred when the air conditioner equipment on the rooftop was moved two years ago, and there was no big problem. Not long after the mall opened at 10 o'clock, employees of a restaurant on the 5th floor found the facility manager and reported that huge cracks appeared around a column and the floor also had a significant sagging feeling. The facility manager decided to temporarily close the restaurant and prepare to resume business after the later renovation is completed. Then until 12 noon, more and more employees and guests found strange noises and cracks in the building and fed back to the mall. At this time, the high-level managers of the mall judged that these abnormal situations were caused by vibrations in the operation of the large air conditioner on the top floor, and the employees below were asked to turn off the air conditioner. However, Sanfeng Department Store, which was shrouded in the high temperature in June, had collapsed and cracks on the ground and tiles ruptured.
At 2 pm that day, Sanfeng Group Chairman Li Liu convened the management to discuss countermeasures for cracks and abnormal noises. Finally, they found relevant people to go to the site for identification and assessment of risks. At 3 o'clock, the structural engineer came to the building to inspect. At this time, the cracks on the roof had already spread across the entire building. At 4 pm, relevant persons reported the results to the senior management of Sanfeng Department Store. Because I dare not make a conclusion, there are great uneasiness factors, and I need to close my business and conduct a systematic and comprehensive inspection. However, Li Yu, chairman of Sanfeng Group, rejected the engineer's advice, believing that the closure of business and renovation will bring significant economic losses. The current situation is not serious and we can still maintain business operations.
At 5 pm, the ground on the 5th floor became more and more serious, making it impossible for the 4th floor to receive customers normally. The facility manager decided to temporarily close this floor. 50 minutes later, with a loud bang on the 5th floor, the entire building began to shake violently, and the floor slabs collapsed layer by layer. The alarm sounded, and people fled in scattered areas. After 20 seconds, the 5-story tall building turned into a ruin. No one knows how many people are pressing under these broken walls.
passing people, local enterprises, and rescue personnel carried out emergency rescue and took back hundreds of fresh lives from the hands of the god of death. But the ending was still tragic. The tragedy caused 502 deaths and 937 injuries. This was the worst casualties in peacetime on Korean history.
Afterwards, according to the official investigation of South Korea, the cause of the disaster was determined:
1. Cut corners in construction. The column diameter was reduced from 80 cm to 60 cm, and the concrete pillars that should have been strengthened with 16 steel bars were reduced to 8. Load-bearing capacity becomes half of the past. The 4-story building on the original design drawings was changed to 5 floors, and an elevator was installed where the load-bearing columns should have been placed, so that the load-bearing capacity of the floor was greatly weakened.
2. Mobile air conditioning device. The huge noise caused by large air conditioning equipment has caused complaints from many surrounding neighbors. Sanfeng Department Store once slid three large air-conditioning equipment from the roof with pulleys to move the position, breaking the original gravity balance and accelerating the process of the building collapse.
3. Accept bribes.According to the authorities' investigation, it was also found that many local officials accepted bribes when building in the project, giving the green light to the process of Sanfeng Group's change of building design.
Sanfeng Group Chairman Li Yu, as the primary responsible person for this incident, his prominent identity and tough backstage have also attracted people's attention. He played for the Korean Central Intelligence Department in the 1960s and was the second-in-command of South Korea's "eternal second-in-command" King Jong-m-m-. Using this identity and relationship, the real estate construction industry was booming at that time, and many government projects were captured. Perhaps because of such a strong background, after causing such bad consequences, Li Liu's punishment was only criminally negligent, and he was sentenced to for 210 and a half years in prison, and even reduced his sentence to 7 years after appeal.
Although South Korea has strengthened the quality management and supervision of construction projects after this incident, and has taken a series of crackdowns and rectification measures for the tofu shoddy projects, the cost is too heavy for the 502 people who unfortunately died and their families.
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