The fact that the chairman decided to evacuate and leave behind all those shoppers and workers including his own daughter in law is so haunting. Greed is an ugly thing.

There was a store worker trapped in the rubble in the basement level, she talked about how she could hear her coworkers trapped with her struggling to stay alive until she eventually stopped hearing their voices. When she was rescued, her sense of time was so warped that she thought she was down there for about a day not two whole weeks.

Okay.... ignoring the shortcuts and cheaply way the building was constructed, the fact they knew it was going collapse and did not evacuate the store but left themselves is absolutely unforgivable. Everyone in that board meeting should have been charged with homicide for every person killed due to they're cold money hungry hearts. If there is a hell, I hope they rot in it.

It's the fact that the executives saved their own asses while leaving everyone else to die that makes this tragedy all the more horrifying.

Lee Joon is almost a caricature of a corrupt businessman. The idea that they didn't want to close the store for fear of lost revenue, but all of the executives evacuated because it was unsafe is like something out of a poorly written movie

My best friend and her mother survived this event. She was three years old at the time, and rescue workers tore her from her mother's arm and took her to the hospital. They didn't allow her mother to go with her, and her family was separated from her for three days. A few months later they immigrated to Canada. Korea was much less developed back then and there were lots of incidents occurring. She is okay now, and has actually moved back to Korea, but her parents still deal with PTSD and will never move back home.

One other detail that exacerbated the weakness of the roof was that when the fifth floor was added the support columns were stuck in with no regard for existing structure below and didn't line up with ones on lower floors. This meant that when the multi ton AC units were placed on the roof all that load was being supported by essentially random patches of floor on the fifth floor rather than the actual load bearing structure of the building. That of course is just on top of the other issues.

After the condo collapse in Florida last year, I heard about this incident. The rescue crew that helped find the person after 17 days came to Florida to help, based on their experience rescuing under similar conditions.

Your summary at 9:34 is probably one of your best yet - "wealth built on unstable foundations". It's true, 500+ lives lost in an accident which was entirely preventable even on the day of the actual accident, if a proper evacuation had been carried out.

Only a couple of minutes in but if the construction crew is refusing to make your building with the new designs, that's the first red flag that there are problems with the design. Listen to the experts. I've seen videos about this disaster before and I was unaware that the original construction crew was fired for refusing to build an unsafe design.

This is a place my dad frequented for business. My grown ass adult cousin called my mom this day & joked that my dad was there. My mom almost fainted, and my cousin thought joking about a tragedy was funny. We don’t talk to her anymore. Rest in peace to the perished.

I lived in South Korea and was friends/coworkers with a Korean girl whose mom had planned to go to this department store on the day it collapsed. She told me the night before, her dad had a bad dream that something bad was going to happen, so he told her mom to please not go to this store that day. She listened to him. That dream thankfully saved her life.

Every time I see something about this incident it makes my blood boil. Callousness, greed, and negligence never lead to a good outcome. In this case, it seems astonishing that anyone got prison terms because people like this can easily buy their way out of trouble. Thanks for another great video.

I love how respectfully you report these tragedies without any extra bullshit of intros or outros! Just a pet peeve of mine when someone spends half the video talking about how thankful they are for their subscribers, especially when the topic of the video is about a tragedy, which is utterly disrespectful. In short: quality content, as always.

I can't imagine surviving the initial collapse and then drowning due to the water applied by the fire department. Unreal...

After visiting Seoul a couple of years ago I was very impressed with their dedication to safety. In my hotel room there was a special harness and abseiling equipment that would allow guests on the upper floors to escape, in the event of fire or some other emergency. I've never seen it anywhere else in the world.

Main thing I learn from this channel is how 90 percent of these disasters were avoidable or could have been mitigated. The other 10 percent are insane buildups of coincidences and bad luck that really makes you feel like those people were doomed no matter what happened.

As a Korean person, this incident is an especially heartbreaking one. This could have all been prevented if it weren't for the negligence of greedy people. :// Thank you for covering this one, love your channel! Also as a side note I'm pleasantly surprised that you pronounced the korean words correctly, I've seen so many people covering this topic butcher them lol(not that it bothers me much though) (Edited my comment slightly bc of poor word choice. Thanks for pointing it out :))

I first heard about this tragedy after watching the South Korean series Black. They had a fictionalized mall collapse in the show, but they had a remembrance for the victims of Sampoong in the credits. Too many tragedies in this world stem from greed and grandiosity.

"It was only after strident protests by residents of the city... that rescue efforts resumed". As happened with the MV Sewol; it appears that South Korean government at all levels seems to get paralysed in the face of a disaster through fear of further risk or loss of life making them look even more incompetent than they already do. I wonder where this stems from... is it an ideological or a cultural issue? Edit: On reflection, I suppose it's just the same as everywhere else in the world; corrupt people are comfortable with their corruption until some tragic event forcefully holds them to account, at which point they crumble like the husks that they are.

I remember first hearing of this on “Seconds from Disaster” and my jaw dropped when I saw the aftermath of the collapse. I mean the entire middle section of the building gone with a huge loss of life. I can’t imagine being stuck under rubble for days on end and then the poor souls who drowned. All due to negligence, who knew? 🙄

I've actually heard the story of this tragedy before - but not FH style! Thanks FH another in-depth analysis highlighting the failures of a small group of decision makers that lead to the unfortunate loss of innocent lives.. may they all RIP 💐

Unbelievable that the management group left the building the day of the collapse because they knew something was up but they left everyone else inside. Absolutely sickening

You know, I only took a single semester of engineering training back in college but I feel like this channel would be good for potential engineers to check out. Drives home the human cost of cutting corners and making engineering/construction mistakes.

On a more positive note, I'm just realizing that you're coming close to 1M subs...clearly plenty of people appreciate your telling of tragedies (myself included!) Congrats on getting so close to a new milestone! All your videos are top-notch 💜

This channel is the most random option you picked up at college because you need the credits and turns out it's the one class that you are looking foward to cause the teacher does such a good job he could probably makes you passionate about anything. And safety is not a bad thing to pay attention to 😆

I know you have previously collaborated with Brick Immortar, and have sometimes covered the same incidents, but you have both really shown how structural collapses and engineering failures should be presented: soberly, clearly, accessibly. Thank you. You do us all a service.

It took me WAY too long to figure out what the next “largest loss from a building collapse” was a decade later. A day to never forget and here I have briefly forgotten 😬

I'm pretty sure revenue loss doesn't quite outweigh the loss of an entire building including the lives of people in it. This man was absolutely blind to long-term consequences of his actions, makes you wonder how he got rich at all. That ain't good business, chief. At least him and any other people responsible had a proper shaming and punishment.

There are episodes where I'm surprised by the low number of casualties for such catastrophic accidents... and there are episodes, like this one, where the number of victims is almost too high to immediately grasp. Wow. Thank you for sharing this!

It's frustrating how many people were aware of the situation of the building. The CEO bribing his executives, them bribing the authorities, them bribing the workers.. It's such a chain of greed that could've been broken so much earlier :( Excellent cover of this topic

17 days!? I’d love to hear his story. That must have been awful being trapped down there in pain, smelling death all around you. I hope he was able to overcome all that trauma.

That was a complete failure from the changes they made in the design phase, the decisions made to move things around the way they did, how they only focused on profits instead of safety, and the recovery efforts were also flawed and resulted in unnecessary deaths as well. Unfortunately, this describes a lot of countries/companies who focus on profits over everything else. This was a disaster from the beginning to the end.

Adding a floor and removing support columns. It's the same breathtaking foresight that thought it was a great idea to limit the number of lifeboats on the Titanic's deck so as to not clutter the promenade or obstruct the view of the ocean. Smooth...

No matter how many times I see that pink building, I will never fail to get chills imagining what those people went thru. Horrible, just a horrible and completely avoidable tragedy, shame on those who had anything to do with it

You have probably heard of the “Separation of Powers” - it refers to the division of a state's government into branches, each with separate, independent powers and responsibilities, so that the powers of one branch are not in conflict with those of the other branches. The typical division is into three branches: a legislature, an executive, and a judiciary. In a similar way builders, engineers, and construction inspectors should all be separate and independent of each other - to prevent this type of corruption.

Is it possible I’m this early for a video? You keep me sane for the 10 hour overnight shift I work. I watch your videos over and over again.

Decided to add an extra floor and remove supporting columns? Not an engineer, but that is a huge red flag.

There was a lot of things that contributed to this event. The 5th floor that was added even though the structure could not support it. The restaurants added to the top floor and heating added in the floors increased the pressure. The columns were smaller than originally designed. The air conditioning units dragged across the roof 2 years before the collapse. The greed of the owner not wanting to shut down the store the day of the collapse even though the structural engineer told him it needed to be shut down. This was a truly sad story :(

I'm shocked a survivor made it 17 days in that ruble. Amazing will to live.

One of the only few channels ive ever "hit the bell icon" for, really admire the directness and matter of fact presentation on these documentaries of terrible incidents. Excellent work on this video, I'd love to see you cover more incidents outside of EU/US!!

I remember seeing this (I believe) on Seconds from Disaster years ago. Seeing everything that lead up to the disaster was sad and awful with how it could have been prevented. Nice seeing your video on it as well!! As dark as it is, I do enjoy videos like these.

This is such a microcosm of the problems inherent to a society that prioritises the immediate acquisition of wealth above all else. A mindset that values making as much money as possible in as little time as possible cannot comprehend the idea of long term planning and sustainability: sure, your building has huge cracks in the ceiling and could end up collapsing and killing a load of people, but if you evacuate everyone, you'll lose out on the money they'll be spending NOW. It's all about the present with no consideration of what will come later and even now, nearly 30 years later, it's just as much of a problem. Corporations still behave this way and it still hurts people.

When I saw this notification I was shocked. I have been obsessed with this channel for about a year and I thought you all covered this! But then I realized that I am way to obsessed with these style channels so I am getting them confused lol. This tragedy out of all stuck with me due to the negligence and the fallout. Either way, I love this channel!

They say good reforms come from terrible tragedies; this is an example of it. Building regulations were changed for the better in Seoul, but at the cost of over 500 lives. A cost which was preventable in the first place if the CEOs of Sampoong weren’t ignorant or negligent

I've heard of this incident before, but I like your style in telling the tale. This reminds me so very much of the Surfside condo collapse and the ongoing issue with San Francisco's Millennium Tower-- building done by the dollar rather than concern for someone else's safety. Progress should never be more important than lives.

This has to be one of the best short form documentary channels on YT. Excellent work as always, with no faff, no fanfare and no BS. Excellent.

That image at 5:12 was really shocking. So awful and so preventable. Just horribly tragic. [and the image at 9:50!!]

Great content as usual. Positive side note for me is that in Korea, these criminally negligent owners actually have to go to prison. Highly doubt that would happen in Europe or America. After Kaprun here in Austria, the result was that no-one was at fault -.-

The lack of regard for peoples' safety in this case is downright sociopathic and utterly terrifying

This was a story that I actually knew about already. I found out about it last year after people online were comparing it to the Champlain Towers collapse in Surfside, Florida. I've learned about a ton of disasters via spending too much time online, but this was one that stuck with me. Amazing content as always.

That was a bad one, must be one of the top 10 building disasters this channel great coverage!

So the owner was told that it was certainly going to collapse and agreed yet was hoping that this disaster would occur after the customers and employees left for the day so he could acquire the profits? Greed on this level is sickening. I'm halfway through this upload and afraid that somehow he'll get off of the charges. I doubt that he died in jail. I hope that I'm wrong. [edit] I was wrong, thankfully.

This is one of those disasters I heard about as a kid, watching those old "Seconds from Disaster"-docus, that stuck with me for a long time. It's basically a perfect storm of greed, corruption, and the mindset that money outweighs lives. But honestly, the most chilling part were the follow-up inspections, which revealed just how deep the corruption went, and that only one in fifty buildings was considered safe by the appropriate standards. Those are the sort of statistics which speak loud to an impressionable young mind... But unlike many other disasters of this kind, the guilty parties were held accountable to some degree. Bhopal had hardly any fallout for the negligent management, despite thousands of deaths. The Windscale catastrophe, although thankfully severely hampered by "Cockroth's Folly," hardly saw any attnetion at all for decades despite being nicknamed "Britain's Chernobyl." Sampoong, on the other hand, publically shamed and punished the guilty parties for their role in the disaster; a move which I feel would prevent many similar disasters from taking place. Because if there's one thing these rich groups and individuals care about more than wealth, it's their image. It's truly the only thing that can stop all of these narcissistic swines that plague our society from stepping out of line, pardon my French.

Speaking of collapses, you should cover the collapse of the Cyprus Structure freeway in Oakland, California, during the otherwise relatively mild Loma Prieta Earthquake. Large loss of life, totally changed the "freeways everywhere" nature of the Bay Area.

I was wondering when you might cover this; it seems like perfect candidate for this channel. I still can’t believe the amount of negligence shown by the people in power in this event, especially when refusing to evacuate with literal yawning cracks in the ceiling. And when they did evacuate, it was only the people in charge who were at that meeting. That means that they recognized a danger strong enough to warrant escaping themselves, but apparently not strong enough to warrant evacuating their shoppers. The ONLY explanation for that, as far as I can tell, is that they valued revenue over human lives. Except their own lives, of course. 🙄 Anyway. Wonderful video, as always. Your channel is my favorite place to start when researching these disasters.

I watched a documentary about this last year about a survivor and the details are so horrifying. People should still be getting paid to this day for what they went through. Now I want to see some people arrested for the Champlain Tower collapse.

I've read about this before, and is actually thinking of when FH will be making a video about it! Upon reading of this, all I can think of is, basically, greed at one of its worst displays... The change in the building's function from an apartment complex to a department store, the addition of an extra floor and the reduction of support columns, the quick and cheap construction methods, the similarly cheap method of moving the air conditioning units, and even the response when the cracks started to appear and when they refused to approve an evacuation, all had one thing in common; they want they want to save/earn as much money as they can...

Imagine being trapped underneath rubble, subsisting off nothing but rainwater, injured and in pain, for seventeen days. Holy shit that poor kid.

This reminds me so much of the collapse of the condominium in Miami Florida.

kinda funny how, i once watched a 1-hour or so documentary about this event, and this 10-minute mini-documentary covered pretty much everything the much longer documentary did too, but without the added drama and reenactment.

There was a book I got for my 15th birthday called "Darkest Hours." a HUGE paperback with 1000s of pictures, all famous disasters. This would have been published in the 70s or 80s. Get it if you like this channel which has the same atmosphere as the book.

Yet another case of profit over people 🤬 greed is an ugly characteristic, responsible for the loss of many innocent lives. It's beyond sickening 🤬 well presented analysis of this heartbreaking story ✌

Like clockwork. Thank you for all your well researched videos. Outstanding and respectful, as usual.

Things like this happen more often than we realize. Very tragic and heartbreaking.

It never ceases to amaze me how people get to executive positions with ideas like cutting corners and ignoring warning signs equals revenue. It's one of the surest ways to ensure your company will have a massive loss of revenue that will dwarf any extra revenue you might have made.

If I was in that meeting, I would’ve pulled the fire alarm. Most people wouldn’t ignore that and would leave. The authorities would then find out about the building’s stability if it hadn’t collapsed yet. The most you’d get for causing a false fire alarm would be a fine I’m pretty sure.

another amazing, honest, and difficult to hear short documentary. best channel, best narration, bar none. more subs for Fascinating Horror, PLEASE!!!

Thank you for covering an incident happened in my country :) Love from korea

Well done . Perfectly delivered facts representing the corner cutting defects of that era .

Standards in Korea are still incredibly lax, thanks mostly to corruption. Building collapses and deaths by building fires are still far too common. Watching the office building across the street from my apartment in Nokbeon-dong (neighborhood in Seoul) being built over the last couple of years has been scary. So many workers just hanging off of scaffolding unharnessed and other similar safety issues.

You should cover the Versailles Wedding Hall disaster or the 1993 World Trade Center incident.

I've seen some coverage on this incident but let me appreciate you for bringing up the story without sensationalizing and dramatizing it. Also I love the way you tell the story in systemic and prospective manner. Kudos!

I've watched SEVERAL mini-docs on this specific incident, and I have to say this one was really the most in-depth , especially regarding the actual construction of the building itself

I’ve first heard of this disaster on Brick Immortar. This was such a devastating disaster. The CEO and his son had the opportunity to evacuate everybody out when the collapse was inevitable, but nope! Money came first, as well as themselves! 😤

Human negligence of course just how many of these tragedies could have been averted if wasn't for such gross incompetence.

love your videos man. you came in super clutch last semester for me when I had to research engineering disasters for a big presentation. just great stuff all around.

Thanks for covering this topic! I’ve been waiting with unbridled anticipation for this one, since it was such a preventable tragedy. We need to learn from our mistakes

ive seen a few videos on this disaster, but im glad youve done one too. I like how you give background and such and deliver you videos.

So I had seen a lot of comments on Plainly Difficults video about the weight of the HVAC units and whatnot. Well, I did the math for a comment on that video and I went back to find it so here it is for anyone curious. This is copied and pasted from my comment 7 months ago. The plans show that the floors were about 800,000 sq ft (74,322 m2). The exact measurements according to the plans are 795,205 sq ft or 73,877 m2. Multiply that by the 5 floors and you get 3,976,027 square feet (369,385 square meters). I found a site that puts the estimated height of the building at about 65 feet. Using that, we get a volume of 25,845,755 cubic feet, or 731,870 cubic meters. So the 3 units had to cool roughly 25.8 million cubic feet. That’s a lot of work for 3 3 ton units. The numbers suggest that 3 15 ton units would be more in line with what was used. Not to mention I doubt the mass of 9 tons would be enough to cause this catastrophic of a failure. 45 tons of weight can easily do this kind of damage. Sadly I can’t find much in the way of anything that tells me exactly what model of units were used or even anything that could give me a clue but I tried. If an actual HVAC tech could figure out based on the numbers I’ve provided if I’m accurate that would be great.

Was just about to call it a night but here I am! Obsessed! Love historic catastrophic facts! Intriguing!

I love how all your videos' first lines are just exactly "when, where and what."

A brilliant documentary as usual. I think these videos are so well put together. I particularly like the presenter’s voice, which is very clear and calming. I also agree with others that the respect with which the dead and injured are treated is highly commendable.

Board: 'Collapse is _inevitable!'_ Chairman: 'Let's wring the last few coppers out of 'em before it does!'

I think the weirdest part is how afterwards the site was actually turned into an apartment complex as it had originally planned to be. I don't know about you, but I don't think I could live on a site where so many people had died beneath it.

I'm addicted to all these stories. Well researched, excellent visuals, great cadence.. what's not to love?

"This isn't safe." "Ok you're fired,then."

2:15am here in Washington State. Sending love to whoever reads this. ❤

This also resulted in safety rules and government inspection crews, who found many more unsafe buildings, which were made right.

My teenage years were spend doing construction, home repair, plumbing, and electrical work (plus, our home was a fixer upper). By the time I joined the Air Force, I had more than a passing familiarity with construction and construction standards. When I was stationed in Korea in the mid 80's, I noticed that a lot of the building construction in the nearby towns around the base was noticeably being done in a hurry with no safety equipment, little regard for building codes, and little or no supervision by qualified personnel. They also had external and internal electrical wiring set up in a way that freaked out anyone familiar with electrical systems (I was an electronics technician). One friend was staying in apartment with his Korean girlfriend and woke up in the middle of the night to weird creaking noises. He thought they had an intruder, but he couldn't find anyone. When he asked the girlfriend the next morning, she said that was normal as the apartment was settling. He explained to her that buildings don't normally settle that much and make that much noise a couple of years after they're built. He never went back to that apartment and heard from a guy who was stationed a year later that the building (and several others) was condemned (it was only three years old by the time.) due to large cracks in the walls caused by the foundation shifting. Much of the construction boom in Korea in the 80's and 90's was unsafe to the casual observer (especially people familiar with construction).

I love the research you put into your videos . It’s very clear when other creators just use preexisting documentaries for their content.

7:22 for anyone wonder he's not referring to 9/11, he's referring to the Dhaka garment factory collapse, which killed an estimated 1,000+ people, in 2013. Sadly this even is almost never talked about.

Just goes to show that on more than one occasion, people have been found alive in rubble that the "authorities" claim is impossible. When a disaster of such magnitude happens, NEVER stop searching! Thank you for this upload. I don't remember this tragedy. 😊

There is a South Koren show called Signal (kind of sci fi time travel melodrama) that has a side plot about the kind of development that was happening in Seoul that caused an accident like this to happen. Good show.

Thank you for your excellent video of this disaster. Especially your detailed leadup to the actual collapse. Truly outstanding! Other videos have focused on the engineering details or the rescue efforts. I appreciate you putting this in the context of the growth taking place at the time.

Damnit I *LITERALLY* just layed down to go to sleep... Oh well. Have my like.

What always angers me most is that the management LEFT, on top of knowing that the dangers of what was inevitably going to happen.

Thank you for yet another respectfully-handled glimpse into unimaginable horror. Your delivery is so much more respectful than other KZfaqrs (the sensationalizing "Ain't it awful!?!" crowd) and your consistent relaying of post-disaster remediation measures/actions/legislation is much appreciated. I'm still working my way through your channel, so don't know if you've covered it, but would suggest a segment on the New London (Texas) School explosion of March 18, 1937. My husband's mother lost two siblings to this disaster and I know you would handle it thoroughly and sensitively. Cheers from North Texas!

Long overdue that you covered this event, but I'm glad you did! It always had interested me, so it's nice to see one of my favorite KZfaqrs finally cover it.

Wow! That rubble reminds me of the Oklahoma City Bombing. So tragic.