On June 29, 1995, the Sampoong Department Store in Seoul, South Korea completely collapsed. It is the deadliest collapse of a modern building before the New York City attacks and is the deadliest unintentional building collapse until the collapse of the Savar Building in 2013. The tragedy occurred due to multiple errors made by the designers and contractors who built the store and the negligence of the store owner. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get Original Essay The structure was built over a landfill, it was originally designed for an office building but halfway through construction, the president wanted to make it a department store. Many engineers working on the project warned owner Joon that the changes were dangerous but he fired them. In the disaster that occurred, 1,500 people were trapped, in which over 500 died and 937 suffered non-fatal injuries. Rescue teams did not begin searching until the next day and the search was suspended due to unstable remains and rescuers reportedly being in danger. Figure 1 illustrates the department structures for each floor. Construction of Sampoong began in 1987, it was originally designed to be an office but the building's future president, Lee, halfway through construction, wanted it to be a department store. The process involved reducing the number of support columns in order to install the escalators. The contractors refused to make these changes as they were unsafe, Lee Joon, the future president, ignored their concerns and hired another construction company for the construction. Sampoong Department Store opened to the public on July 7, 1990, attracting approximately 40,000 people per day during the building's five-year existence. The shop consisted of north and south wings, connected by an atrium. (Almarwae Mohammed 2017). Lee Joon ignored safety procedures and risked the lives of everyone involved in the accident even after knowing the possible consequences. In April 1995, cracks began to appear in the ceiling of the fifth floor of the south wing. Lee and his management staff's only response involved moving merchandise and stores from the top floor to the basement. On the morning of June 29, the number of cracks in the area increased dramatically, prompting managers to close the top floor and turn off the air conditioning. Store management failed to close the building or issue formal evacuation orders as the number of customers in the building was unusually high and they did not want to lose the day's revenue. However, the managers themselves left the premises, as a precaution. (Guo, H. and others, 2010). Civil engineering experts were asked to inspect the structure, but they carried out only a cursory check in which they said the building was at risk of collapsing. About five hours before the collapse, several loud bangs were heard from the upper floors, as vibrations from the air conditioning caused cracks in the floor slabs to further widen. After the cracks were already 10 cm wide, it was realized that the collapse was inevitable and an emergency meeting was held. In the meeting. The directors suggested that all costumes should be evacuated. However, JoonLee refused for fear of losing revenue. Joon Lee left the building himself because he was aware of the danger but did not evacuate the customers. On June 29, the north wing of the Sampoong store collapsed, the disaster killing over 500 people. A large number of casualties were due in part to the clear missof concern on the part of the owners/occupiers of the building in not having acknowledged the signs of serious structural distress before the collapse and in evacuating the occupants. The five-storey building was a flat plate structure with lift shafts and services positioned in rigid shear wall structures between the two wings and the floor.end of the building. (NJ Gardner and others 2002). From the moment of critical collapse it took only about 20 seconds for the entire south wing of the structure to collapse. Figure 2 shows the Sampoong department store after the collapse. Additionally, property damage was estimated to be approximately $216 million. The restaurant floor had a heated concrete base called "ondol", run through with hot water pipes; the presence of the 4 foot (1.2 m) thick “ondol” significantly increased the weight and thickness of the slab. Thanks to the presence of the fifth floor, the columns supported four times the maximum weight they should have supported. Additionally, the building's air conditioning unit was also installed on the roof, creating a 45-ton (50-ton) load, four times the design limit. (Guo, H. and others 2010). In 1993 the air conditioners were moved above the 5E column, where there were the most visible cracks, the purpose of the air conditioning was to cover the cracks, the cracks got worse due to the columns holding up the fifth floor. According to witnesses, The collapse started from the fifth floor. The commission in charge of the investigation concluded that the collapse began in column 5E of the fifth floor. The reasons for the collapse were identified as design errors, construction defects, poor construction quality control, reduction in the cross-section of the supporting columns of the fifth floor. Figure 3 illustrates how the 5E column was damaged and Figure 4 illustrates the vibrations for the AC units. Around 5pm local time, the ceiling of the fifth floor began to collapse and store workers blocked access to the fifth floor. Before the incident, the store was filled with hundreds of customers, however Joon Lee did not feel the need to close the store or make repairs during that time. When the building began making popping noises around 5:52 p.m., workers began sounding alarms and evacuating the building, but it was too late. At about 5.52pm, the roof gave way and their air conditioning units crashed into the building. fifth floor already overloaded. The main columns weakened to accommodate the escalators, collapsed as well, and the south wing of the building sank into the basement. Within 20 seconds of the disaster, all the building's columns in the south wing gave way, killing 502 people and trapping more than 1,500 inside. (Alma Rae Mohammed2017). It is clear that the whole tragedy could have been avoided if they had evacuated the customers in time, but Joon Lee did not consider such an approach necessary. Joon Lee was aware that the collision was inevitable, so it was very selfish to do nothing and put so many people's lives at risk. After the disaster, Lan Chung, professor of civil engineering and Professor Oan Chul Choi, head of the Department of Architecture, began investigating the reason for the structure's collapse. The first thing they noticed in their investigation was that the structure of the shop was a flat plate structure, as illustrated in figure 5, there are no crossbars or steel structures; without crossbars some form of load transmission is missing, meaning the structure must be built perfectly. Secondly, they began to look at the site on which the building was built and the materials used. Research revealed that even though the superstructure was built.