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Source: Internet
01
Mitutoyo Department Store is located in a prime location in Seocho-gu, Seoul, and the background of Mitutoyo Group's chairman Li Lian can build a luxury mall in the luxury district, and it must be indispensable.
What is surprising is that the predecessor of Mitutoyo Department Store turned out to be just a landfill.
In 1987, Li Lian was discharged from the army, because of his strong military background, he relied on his connections to win the land, and then began to renovate.
Originally, he planned to build an office building, but because of the growing economy of Seoul at that time, it gradually became a golden mainstream street, and Li Lian immediately saw a business opportunity and decided to convert half of the office building into a department store.
This mall has a total of 9 floors, which are 5 floors above ground and 4 floors underground, with a total of two buildings, A and B, and a public lobby connecting the two floors.
Because Building A is mainly engaged in some clothing, cosmetics, supermarkets and other highly entertaining goods, so the outside wall is also relatively trendy, with a pink exterior wall with the logo of "Mitutoyo" on it, which is particularly eye-catching on the block.
This has also made the Mitutoyo department store a trend, and in the early 90s when Korea was just starting to develop, the daily turnover exceeded 500,000 US dollars, a figure that is shocking even today.
02
However, what makes people angry is that in fact, this tragedy had a chance to be prevented.
In April 1995, a crack suddenly appeared in the ceiling of the fifth floor, which was the top floor, but they ignored it completely, thinking that it was just a crack caused by water entering the ceiling.
More than two months later, on June 29, the day of the accident, the facility manager came to work as usual that morning and found a note on his desk, left by the security guard on the night watch, which read:
"Yesterday I suddenly noticed a crack on the top floor, please be careful."
The manager didn't pay attention to the note, firstly, the building had just been overhauled and no problems were found, and secondly, he could roughly guess what the crack was.
The air conditioner on the top floor had been moved two years ago, which was probably caused by improper operation, and it was not a big problem.
But in the morning, what was supposed to be a small crack suddenly became larger, and there were several restaurants operating on the top floor, and one of them reported the matter to the manager.
The manager also found that the matter was a little serious, so he reported to Li Lian, and at the same time, the restaurant was temporarily closed, and after Li Lian discussed with the senior management, he decided to move the shops on the top floor underground first.
At this time, the tourists who were still in the mall did not know that the shadow of death was quietly looming over everyone.
No one could have imagined that a small crack could bury 1,500 people alive.
After only a while, someone noticed that the building was shaking, and Li Lian consulted with the management staff and believed that it was caused by the air conditioner.
It sounds like nonsense, but there's a reason why they're so skeptical.
There were three large air-conditioners weighing 29 tonnes on the roof, and if they were filled with water, the total weight would reach 87 tonnes, and the air-conditioners would be installed at the front of the building.
However, there are many residential houses near the front end, and many residents complained about too much noise in the first two years, so Mitutoyo Group moved three air conditioners to the rear end of the building.
Such a heavy thing should have been used by a crane, but in order to save money and trouble, they directly dragged the air conditioner over with a pulley.
03
In the process, the floor slab of the top floor was cracked, and some time ago they found that the crack in the ceiling was due to this.
The nearly 90-ton air conditioner is working, and there was a crack on the top floor some time ago, so it seems reasonable to cause the building to vibrate when the air conditioner is working.
After a series of inspections, the experts believed that the entire building was now in danger of collapsing, and advised them to close down immediately.
However, the day's traffic was so good that if they were to evacuate now, they would not only lose millions of dollars in revenue, but also cause panic in the crowd, which would have an impact on business in the future.
After thinking about it again, Li Lian decided to continue the business, so he did not make a noise, let alone evacuate the crowd.
However, a few hours later, that is, in the afternoon, there was a sudden loud bang on the top floor, apparently something had collapsed, but since the top floor had been moved at that time, there was no one there, so the matter did not spread.
Until the load-bearing columns on the 5th floor also cracked, the entire ceiling began to collapse, and then the crack extended all the way to the 4th floor, and after only an hour, Mitutoyo had to close the 4th floor.
The matter has reached this point, and it would have been too late to evacuate the crowd at this time, but unfortunately the management is underground and has no idea what is happening on the top floor.
Until the entire floor of the top floor fell, and the air conditioner also fell to the 4th floor, the load-bearing columns that had been overwhelmed could not be supported, and the floors began to fall layer by layer from the 5th floor, and the load-bearing columns also became "dominoes", collapsing layer by layer.
The entire 4 basement floors were filled, and in just 20 seconds, the once pink landmark was razed to the ground.
After the collapse, 1,500 people were buried alive in the mall, 502 people were killed in the accident, and more than 900 people were injured to varying degrees.
This sudden accident stunned the people nearby, and they rushed to save people as soon as they reacted, and the people opened the rubble with their bare hands, only rescuing the outermost few injured people.
Then ambulances and police cars arrived one after another, and the whole scene fell into chaos, because there were so many people buried that large bulldozers did not dare to use them, so they could only rely on manual excavation.
This slow rescue lasted for 2 days, and many people died in despair while waiting, but the government never tried to rescue with all its might, and after 2 days of searching, the government decided to stop the search.
This instantly caused dissatisfaction among the people, and everyone took to the streets to demonstrate, and the police could only violently stop it, and in an instant the streets were filled with cries, shouts, and moans, and the level of chaos had reached its peak.
This is an accident second only to the United States 911 terrorist attacks and the collapse of a building in Bangladesh.
1,500 people were buried alive, more than 500 died, and the people refused to give up, and they took to the streets to force the Korea government to give an explanation, and in desperation, the government could only entrust Zhong Lan, a professor of engineering at Dankook University, to investigate the cause.
Through the investigation of the scene, he first ruled out the possibility of a terrorist attack, if it was a bomb explosion, then there should be an explosion point first, and then the surrounding debris would scatter in all directions.
However, there was no sign of an explosion or fire at the scene, and the building collapsed from the top down, so the possibility of a gas explosion could be ruled out in addition to a terrorist attack.
Since it is not an external factor, then it can only be checked from the inside of the building, and generally the collapse of the building is because the foundation has not been laid, but he has checked the foundation but has not found any problems.
Later, Zhong Lan found the architectural drawings again, and after repeated observation and calculation, he finally found the problem, and with the deepening of the investigation, the truth finally surfaced!
04
The reason for all this is actually the construction of the building 7 years ago.
In 1987, Li Lian set his sights on the land that was still a garbage treatment plant, and everyone knew that he originally planned to build an office building, but it was eventually converted into a department store.
And that's where the accident started.
According to the original design, the office building was supposed to be built with four floors, but later the design had to be changed due to the need to renovate the mall.
However, Li Lian did not want to demolish and rebuild them all, so on the original basis, he asked the construction team to forcibly remove many load-bearing columns to make room for the installation of escalators.
After all, if it is changed to an entertainment shopping mall, escalators are indispensable, but this is obviously not in line with the norms, and the construction team refused Li Lian's request, so he was fired in anger.
At first, the department store was built with only four floors, but soon Li Lian decided to add another floor to open a large skating rink, but later for various reasons, the newly added fifth floor became a gourmet restaurant.
What's more, Zhong Lan found in the investigation that not only did the load-bearing columns inside the building not meet the regulations, but also cut corners, and the steel bars in the load-bearing columns were missing by half, and they were also misplaced!
The rebar in the slab is a full 10 centimeters from the surface, which means that the thickness of the slab can only be reduced when constructing it.
It was a struggle to support the huge air cooler on the roof, but it was not until two years ago that it was moved and became the "last straw that broke the camel's back".
After the cause of the accident was revealed, the people instantly boiled, and although more than 500 people were killed, the chaebol forces in Korea protected Li Lian very well.
Countless Korean people demonstrated in the streets for several months before the Korea government could not bear the pressure and sentenced Li to 10 years and 7 months in prison.
And this incident actually involved 12 high-level officials in Korea one after another, who accepted bribes in the construction of the Mitoyo department store, and were eventually sentenced to varying degrees.
Although it seems that the perpetrator has been punished, in the face of the persecution of countless people, the death of more than 500 people, and the fragmentation of more than 500 families, he finally only got a few years in prison. (Muzi Covenant)