Transcript Sampoong Department Store Collapse

SAMPOONG DEPARTMENT
STORE COLLAPSE
Seoul, South Korea
By: Alyssa Oshiro-momohara, Brynn Watanabe, and Royce Miyahara
South Korea
 A major international economic power.
 12th largest economy in the world and the 3rd
largest in Asia.
 Construction is King.
 Industry has massive leeway to build
whatever, whenever, and however they so
desired.
Sampoong Department Store
 Five-story tall
department store,
complex.
 40,000 people shopped
in the department
store every day.
 New pink edifice of
commercialization.
Background Information
 Owner is Mr.Lee Joon.
 Constructed in 1987.
 Considered to be one of the “swankiest”
stores in town.
 Had everything under one roof, from a
gourmet grocery to high-end clothing and
cosmetic boutiques.
Disaster Strikes!
 6:00 pm on June 29th, 1995.
 In less than 20 seconds, the 5-story
department store collapses into its four
basements.
 Estimated 1,500 unsuspecting shoppers and
employees trapped inside.
Statistics
 Killed more than 500 people.
 Injured over 900 people.
 Resulted in about ₩270 billion
(approximately US$216 million) worth of
property damage.
So why did it collapse??
 No signs of a natural disaster.
•Was not a terrorist act.
•No wrecking ball was in
sight.
Looking Deeper
 Architect’s drawings did not match
the engineers calculations.
 Still not within building standards
the structure should have been
safe because of the margins of
error calculated into design
standards.
Management Decisions
 Originally designed as an office building with
four floors.
 Mr. Joon carried out modifications over
objections of the original contractors, whom
he fired and replaced.
Construction Flaws
 Foundation on a former trash dump.
 Addition of the concrete slab for the 5th floor
exceeded the design loads by a factor of 4.
 Relocation of AC unit on roof damaged the
roof structure.
 Concrete was mixed with salt-water,
speeding the deterioration of the steel used
to strengthen the building.
Construction Flaws Part 2
 Rebars were centimeters thinner than
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regulations would allow.
Size of columns reduced from 80 cm to 60
cm (under regulation size).
16 rebars per column was reduced to 8.
Support columns were cut away to
accommodate escalators.
OVERALL-the strength was reduced by half.
Weren’t there any signs?
Warnings
 Building showed cracking due to the overload.
 Cracks appeared in the ceiling of the fifth floor.
 A worker noted a gas leak but request to close
store was denied.
 At the day of the collapse, the ceiling on the fifth
floor started crumbling.
Response
 The only response to this was an order from
Mr. Joon to move the expensive merchandise
from the fifth to the ground floor.
 No further action was taken, nothing that
would hinder the daily income.
Conclusion
 It is considered the worst disaster in South
Korea's (admittedly short) history as well as
the worst structural collapse of a building in
modern history.
 Blamed for faulty design and shortcuts during
construction.
Works Cited
 http://911research.wtc7.net/wtc/analysis/compare/samp
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oong.html
http://www.hazardcards.com/card.php?id=8
http://blogs.nationalgeographic.com/channel/blog/2005/
09/explorer_collapse.html
http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/details?mid=d
738f39cd5d90610acd7ad4d176b57d5
http://everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=954387