If you are going to install air conditioning, remember what happened to South Korea. It was the architectural disaster of the millennium

In the 1990s, some of Asia’s densest cities reached concentrate millions of people in urban areas built in just a few decades. In that same period, several studies began to warn that a significant part of the buildings erected during the great economic booms had serious structural deficiencies. In fact, in some inspections after major accidents, it was estimated that only a minority of buildings fully complied security standards.

When you grow faster than you can build. In a few decades, South Korea went from the devastation of war to becoming an industrial and urban powerwith a speed of growth that was hardly unprecedented. Furthermore, during the economic boom in the 1980s, the country was chosen to host the 1988 Olympic Games, and an exorbitant number of buildings were built to meet these new needs.

That impulse translated into a construction fever where building architectures mattered more than doing them well, and where practices such as cutting costs, accelerating deadlines or ignoring technical warnings became common. In that scenario was born Sampoong Department Storenot as a project exceptionally flawed from the beginning, but as a typical product of an era when progress was measured in square meters and not in safety standards.

Air conditioning as a wick. The key point of the tragedy that was about to take place and that ended up turning the department store into the millennium architectural disasterit was not a single error, but a chain of decisions that ended up concentrating all the fragility of the building in an apparently secondary detail: the air conditioning system.

As? Apparently, the equipment installed on the roof They weighed tens of tonsfar above what the structure could support, and their accelerated installation did not even follow normal procedures, as they were dragged on the roof, damaging the structure itself. From that moment on, a terrifying image: every vibration when you turn them on widened invisible cracks that toured the building. What should have been an element of comfort became a lethal burden that ended up acting as the final trigger for the collapse, concentrating years of accumulated negligence in a single point.

Condemned from the plans. The disaster began long before anyone heard creaking in the ceiling. The original project It was a residential block four floors, but was transformed by Lee Joon, future director of the Sampoong Group, to turn it into a large shopping center without properly redesigning the structure. Plus: Due to bans in Seoul that prevented foreign companies from signing contracts in the city, these monstrous buildings were awarded to a handful of South Korean companies. Overwhelmed by pressure, companies decided that it was best to accelerate the pace of work, regardless of the cost.

Thus, the diameter of the pillars was reduced from 80 to 60 centimetersand the distance between them was increased to increase the useful surface, columns removed to install escalators, its thickness was reduced to gain commercial space and a fifth floor was added that was never planned. Each modification increased the weight and weakened the resistancewhile companies that warned of the danger were fired and replaced by more accommodating ones. The result was a chaotic building that, on paper, no longer had a safety margin even before opening its doors.

Cracks getting bigger. In the months before the collapse, the building gave multiple warnings that something was wrong. Visible cracks appeared, floors vibrated, employees felt dizzy, and engineers warned of a imminent structural failure.

The management’s reaction was to close some areas, turn off the air conditioning at the last minute and continue operating normally in the rest of the building. The reason was so simple as devastating: Losing a day of sales in a complex that received thousands of people was unacceptable. Even on the day of the collapse, with cracks of several centimeters and obvious signs of danger, it was decided do not evacuate customers.

The collapse. On the afternoon of June 29, 1995, the building did not explode nor was it the victim of an external attack: he just gave in to the crazy number of negligence. The air conditioning equipment ended up passing through the weakened roof, the columns could not support the accumulated load and the building collapsed. collapsed in a matter of 20 secondscrushing entire plants on top of each other.

More than 500 people died and more than a thousand were trapped, many of them in a space that, just a few hours before, symbolized the country’s economic success. It was a destruction so rapid that it turned a shopping center full of life into a mountain of rubble in less than half a minute.

An avoidable tragedy. Rescue efforts continued for weeks, with survivors found even more than two weeks later under the remains of the building. But the magnitude of the disaster revealed an even more disturbing reality: many victims did not die only from the collapse, but due to subsequent failures in emergency management.

Meanwhile, investigations confirmed the most obvious: there was not a single cause, but one after another.accumulation of avoidable errorsfrom the use of low-quality materials to business decisions that prioritized immediate profit over any safety criteria.

Corruption, punishment and a system in question. The collapse not only destroyed a building, but exposed an entire system. Those responsible, starting with owner Lee Joon, were convicted, including several officials involved in corrupt practices, but the impact was much broader.

Subsequent inspections revealed that a significant portion of Seoul’s buildings had very serious structural problemswhich forced us to review regulations and reinforce controls. The Sampoong ceased to be an isolated case and became in a symbol of what happens when a society builds too quickly and too badly.

The legacy. Today, where the building stood there is no visible trace of the tragedy, but its lesson remains crystal clear. The disaster was not the result of bad luck or an unforeseeable accident, but of conscious decisions repeated over and over again.

The air conditioning did not collapse the building on its own, it was simply the last push to a structure that was carrying years on the limit. That is why the story remains so disturbing, because it shows that, sometimes, great disasters do not begin with a spectacular failure, but with small concessions that no one wanted to stop in time.

One more thing. By the way, Lee Joon was found guilty of criminal negligence and sentenced to ten and a half years in prison. Material damage increased to 216 million dollarsand the families of the victims managed to obtain a total compensation of 300 million dollars. During the trial, Joon stated that he was more concerned about the financial impact of the tragedy on his company than the fate of the victims.

Eventually, the demands proved too much for Sampoong, who dissolved shortly after the events.

Image | 서울특별시 소방재난본부

In Xataka | If you’re hot at home, remember that Disney made an auditorium with a huge mistake: turning a neighborhood into an unbearable oven

In Xataka | If the solution to the housing crisis is to “build high”, Spain has the best possible example at hand: Benidorm