Sampoong Disaster research paper

June 29th, 1995 seemed like a normal day to citizens in South Korea’s Economic hub, Seoul. It was a bright, clear Thursday afternoon, and shoppers were drawn to the prestigious Sampoong Department Store; a glistening 5-story symbol of the economic prosperity of South Korea at the time. Just before 6 p.m., with over 1,500 occupants inside, the once proud department store was reduced to a pile of rubble in less than 20 seconds. Once the dust settled, the scale of the catastrophe became evident: 502 people lost their lives in the collapse and 937 were severely injured. (Sampoong) The question on everyone’s mind was “why? Why did this happen? What caused this tragedy?” Over the course of the next year, an in depth investigation was led into the cause of the collapse, and concluded with 25 people being put on trial including high-profile Sampoong executives and 3,293 settlement cases totaling close to 350 million USD. (Mclean, Anderson, Peterlin, Del viccio) The first thought on everyone’s mind was that this was an act of terrorism. There have always been extreme groups of people who wish to do harm to others, and this certainly inflicted a great deal of harm to the citizens of Seoul. It also bore some telltale characteristics of terrorist attacks, such as the fact that there was no obvious cause of the collapse. An internal explosion, perhaps from a terrorist bomb, would have accounted for why the building fell, but upon investigation, it was revealed that there were only small fires fueled by gasoline from cars in the parking garage as opposed to the huge infernos that usually accompany bomb blasts. (Sampoong) Also, the debris from the structure fell straight down instead of outward, like an explosion would have caused, so a terrorist attack was quickly ruled out. (Superstore Collapse) With this news, investigators would need to look to the structure itself for answers. The building was constructed in the late 1980’s and was completed in 1989. (Mclean,

Cited: “Superstore Collapse.” Seconds From Disaster. Nat Geo, Washington D.C. 27 Mar. 2009. Television Mclean, Chris, Brooks Anderson, Carl Peterlin, and Kyle Del Veccio. “Sampoong Department Store.” Failures. N.p., n.d. Web. 27 Mar. 2013 “Sampoong Department Store Collapse.” Absolute Astonomy. Absolute Astronomy, n.d. Web 31 Mar. 2013 “Seoul Department Store Collapses.” History.com A&E Television Networks, n.d. Web. 27 Mar. 2013