Reply #18: Pancaked? The Sampoong Department Store collapse [View All]

[kwassa]

http://www.reference.com/browse/wiki/Sampoong_Department_Store_collapse

The Sampoong Department Store collapse was a structural failure that occurred on June 29, 1995 in the Seocho-gu district of Seoul, South Korea. The collapse is the largest peacetime disaster in South Korean history – 501 people were killed and 937 injured.



At about 5:00 p.m. Korea Standard Time (UTC+9:00), the fourth floor ceiling began to sink, resulting in store workers blocking customer access to the fourth floor. However, when the building started to produce cracking sounds at about 5:50 p.m., workers began to sound alarm bells and evacuate customers. Around 6:05 p.m., the roof gave way, and the air conditioning unit crashed through into the already-overloaded fifth floor. The main columns, weakened to allow the insertion of the escalators, collapsed in turn, and the building's south wing pancaked into the basement.