Another modern collapse that took 500 lives happened in 1995 in Seoul, South Korea. The building that gave way was the Sampoong Department Store.
Originally, it was an office tower, but later the owner insisted on changes that removed support columns to fit escalators. Later, he even built a fifth floor and rooftop full of air conditioning units, which pushed the structure past its limit, and it collapsed. This incident led to reforms in South Korea’s building codes.
While all these structures and their collapses forced people to learn from their mistakes and improve the way we build constructions, their cost was thousands of people’s lives. It was a hefty price to pay, but it taught specialists that ignoring red flags, skimping out on materials, or violating code isn’t worth it.
For more curiosities about design and construction that fortunately didn’t have a fatal ending, click on this previous article about unique buildings or repurposed architectural wonders.
