Inspection of collapse cause of Sampoong Department Store

Abstract

On June 29, 1995, the Sampoong Department Store in Seoul, South Korea, completely collapsed. It was a five story reinforced concrete (RC) building with underground 4 floors and was built using a technique called "flat slab construction". The collapse is the largest peacetime disaster in South Korean history - 502 people died, 6 missing, and 937 sustained injuries. The Sampoong Department Store was completed in late 1989, and it opened to the public on July 7, 1990, attracting an estimated 40,000 people per day during the building's 5 years in service. After the collapse, intense investigation was conducted to find out the direct causes of the collapse through (1) survey on the present collapse situation and ground condition, (2) strength test of the concrete and steel collected at the site, (3) design documents and construction/management reports, and (4) structural analysis. The investigation revealed that the Sampoong Department Store collapsed because so many direct and indirect causes such as flaws in design phase and mistakes in construction and management process were overlapped.