Disaster Class: Two Deadly Man-Made Disasters

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello, campers, grab your marshmallows and gather around the true
crime campfire. We're your camp counselors. I'm Katie and I'm Whitney,
and we're here to tell you a true story that
is way stranger than fiction. Or roasting murderers and marshmallows
around the true crime campfire. There's a saying that goes

(00:20):
all regulations are written in blood, and it's true. If
given the opportunity, companies will just cut corners and find
loopholes to make their jobs easier and cheaper, skirt some
kind of oversight. And when it all goes wrong, when
there's blood on their hands, when there's a dozen microphones
in their faces, the people in charge always look contrite.

(00:42):
And that's when the rules change. Because some idiot decided
that money was worth more than human life. And that's infuriating,
isn't it. The moundanity of that kind of evil. They
wanted to save a couple bucks, and now people are
dead and hurt and they're sorry. Today we're talking about
two cases where hundreds of people lost their lives because

(01:04):
some big wig at the top didn't like the idea
of spending a little more money. This is disaster class
A grab bag of deadly man made disasters.

Speaker 2 (01:24):
Case one, Disco inferno, the Coconut Grove fire. For this one,
we're in Boston, Massachusetts, on November twenty eighth, nineteen forty two,
at the Coconut Grove Restaurant and supper Club. It was
more of a nightclub, but technically nightclubs weren't allowed in
Boston at the time. But see what we mean about loopholes.
Human history is filled with people finding loopholes. Everyone's little

(01:47):
siblings favorite game as a kid was I'm not touching you.
I'm not touching you right well, actually my favorite game
with my little brother was, hey, look I broke your
nose again. But whatever, we're great for now, I promise.
Coconut Grove was supremely popular during the nineteen twenties, fueled
by a prohibition in its seemingly endless access to booze.

(02:10):
This access came from being owned by a member of
the local mob. After prohibition ended, people were a bit
less keen to be hanging around with shady characters, so
patronage dipped a bit. In the nineteen thirties, after the
owner was gunned down by a rival family ownership passed
to a lawyer named Barnett Lanski. At the dawn of
World War II, business picked up again. In fact, it

(02:32):
became the it place for any Boston social lighte in
nineteen forty two. Barnett was a lawyer, but he wasn't
super committed to following the law. It would later be
found that he was operating without a building permit or
a liquor license. So that's good, I guess. The building
itself was a bit of a marvel. It was a
single story with a basement. The basement had a bar

(02:55):
named the Melody Lounge, the kitchen, and some storage areas,
while the main floor held the dining room, the ballroom,
a bandstand, and several barrooms where patrons could drink in
a quieter setting. The channel Fascinating Horror on YouTube described
it as a warren, and I'd have to agree. There's
no direct way out of the building. You'd have to
twist and turn your way out, especially if you were

(03:17):
in the basement. The main entrance and exit of the
building was a single revolving door at the front of
the building. Can't imagine that being a bad idea, right
The Coconut Grove's main claim to fame, though, was the
retractable roof over the ballroom, where on warm nights patrons
could dance under the stars, which really sounds lovely, But

(03:38):
the problem is it was made of cloth and, according
to one report, may have contained a quote highly flammable
nitro cellulose compound used to make munitions and celluloid or
nitrate film for early motion pictures. The entire club was
decorated with paper palm trees, fake leather upholstery, and cloth
wall hangings, all placed close together with very little concern

(04:01):
for safety. Like, yeah, yeah, just opened up a new nightclub. Yeah,
built it out of oily rags and matches, just in
retrospect Hindsight's twenty twenty. But like, dude, just everything here
is a blaring alarm.

Speaker 3 (04:17):
Bel Like, I don't even think you need hindsight for this, lad,
I think you just need regulariously right sight.

Speaker 2 (04:24):
On the evening of November twenty eight, at around ten
to fifteen pm, it was estimated that there were one
thousand guests inside the Coconut Grove. That evening, a bus
boy named Stanley Tomashevski was told to go repair a
light bulb in the corner of the melody lounge. The
bulb was located at the top of a fake palm tree. Allegedly,
the light bulb had been unscrewed by a guest who

(04:45):
wanted to mug down with his date with a bit
of privacy. Unable to see what he was doing in
the dark, Stan lit a match to screw in the
new light bulb. Seconds later, guests saw flames lick the
fronds of the tree and saw several other nearby decorations
changed color without noticeable flame. Then the palm tree burst

(05:06):
into a proper fire, quickly catching nearby decorations on fire
with it. Bartenders and other staff rushed over to try
and put the fire out with cups of water and
seltzer bottles. Some patrons found this site a little amusing,
while others immediately sensed the danger and tried to make
their way out of the dark basement. The fire moved
so fast, though, that some bodies were later found still

(05:28):
holding their drinks sitting at their barstools, which reminds me
so much of Pompeii right like how they all just
got frozen in their final moment As the ash covered
the town so creepy. Many found themselves at an emergency
exit only to find it locked. And why you would
lock an emergency exit is just far beyond my understanding,

(05:50):
but there would be several exits that people trying to
escape would find locked. Patrons redirected towards the revolving door
as a fireball exploded forward and up towards the main
floor of the building, pushing toxic gas with it, The
false roof quickly caught fire, spreading the flames to the
walls in exterior. Meanwhile, a few people were able to

(06:10):
exit through the revolving doors, but many more were held
up with the crush and held in place as the
flames reached them or flat out pulverized in the crowd.

Speaker 3 (06:20):
Luckily, the Boston Fire Department was on a call about
a car fire three blocks away from the Coconut Grove
at the time and were able to see the smoke
rising from the building. They rushed over and began rescue efforts.
Within ten minutes, the fire chief declared it a four
alarm fire, and within twenty he declared the fifth alarm.
For those that don't know, alarm levels designate the severity

(06:42):
of the fire and the levels of response needed by
the fire department. A five alarm fire means that the
highest level of response is needed. The Boston Fire Department
was confronted with huge flames along with highly toxic gas
caused by the cheap furniture in the building. People that
were able to exit on their own collapsed as soon
as they made it out, and soon the street was

(07:03):
filled with stacked bodies shoulder high, both living and dead,
sometimes blocking Exitso oh my god. They had to set
up a temporary morgue nearby to deal with all the bodies.
And this is so terrifying, like people would be carried
to the mork only to be discovered that they were
alive and have to be rushed to the hospital. Inside,

(07:24):
some guests were able to follow employees to safety. The
employees knew the club much better than the guests and
were escaping through back corridors and in some cases hiding
in refrigerators to be found later. Some emergency exits were
blocked by decorations, and the employees had managed to open those.
One exit door opened inwardly, so under the press of

(07:44):
bodies it slammed shut, trapping would be escapees. Inside. Some
employees were able to get through windows. The Army, Navy,
and National Guard were called in to help with moving
the injured to hospitals. They used taxis, newspaper delivery trucks,
milk trucks, basically anything with wheels to get victims to
the hospital. One hospital, Boston City Hospital, got three hundred

(08:08):
patients in one hour, which fun fact, I guess exceeded
the rate found in London during the blitz Wow. Luckily,
local hospitals had been stockpiling medical supplies in anticipation of
an access attack on the US East coast, so they
had plenty of supplies. They called in off duty staff
and began work to help. At the end of it all,

(08:31):
four hundred and ninety two people died in the Coconut
Grove fire, with one hundred and sixty six more injured.
Among the dead were sixty four first responders and one
movie star.

Speaker 2 (08:41):
Oh wow, that's so sad.

Speaker 3 (08:44):
As the fire died down, questions began to get asked
about how in the hell this happened. It seemed like
the Coconut Grove was designed to be a bonfire rather
than a nightclub. Initially, blame fell on poor bus boy
stand At least from the public perspective, officials weren't so sure.
First of all, he was only sixteen, which was way

(09:06):
too young to be working at a nightclub. Second of all,
investigators found that on top of the really poor, highly
flammable interior design decisions made, Barnett Lansky also cut corners
everywhere else. He replaced the free on in the AC
unit with methyl chloride, which is you guessed it, highly flammable.

Speaker 2 (09:27):
Great.

Speaker 3 (09:28):
He also allowed unlicensed contractors to do all his electrical work.
Oh my lord, and you know Whitney you asked about
who in the hell locks emergency exits? Yeah, turned out
it was Burnett Olansky He surprise, surprise, he didn't like
the idea of patrons leaving without paying, so he locked

(09:49):
them fire. Investigators also found a couple of doorways bricked over.

Speaker 2 (09:54):
Oh my god, almighty.

Speaker 3 (09:56):
Plus, the nightclub was over double its capacity that night.
Even if Stan was responsible for the fire, which it
was determined he might not have been, he never should
have been there in the first place, and far more
contributed to the fire than some kid lighting a match.
The reality was that Stan was just a kid who
was trying to bring in money for his sick mom.

(10:19):
The public still excoriated him at the time, and he
lived with guilt for the rest of his life.

Speaker 2 (10:24):
Ah, poor kid, just a convenient scapegoat for people who
couldn't be bothered to find out the real story. And
as for Lanski, the state decided that charging him with
four hundred and ninety two counts of manslaughter would be
too much for a trial, so they randomly picked nineteen
victims and charged him with nineteen counts. A jury found
him guilty and he was sentenced to twelve to fifteen

(10:46):
years in prison, and for some bizarre reason, the governor
pardoned him after he served three and a half years.
Just digest that for a second. Some sources attribute this
to a compassionate release because he did die of cancer
shortly after he got out, but others say he was
buddies with the governor at the time. Ew could be both.

(11:08):
Who knows. This incident did change building codes in Massachusetts
and throughout the US, though now anytime you see revolving doors,
they're flanked by two outwardly opening doors. All exterior exit
doors open outwardly, and emergency exits are clearly marked and
never locked or block during business hours. All because Barnett

(11:29):
Blanski was a dumb, greedy, little shit. Stain Burn treatment
also took huge leaps due to this incident. The first
instance of using penicillin on a burn patient was a
victim of this fire. They also were able to discover
that the best way to treat a burn was to
just leave it alone, you see, to prevent infection. They
would scrub the burn clean, removing any blister's dead skin

(11:52):
that's you know, yuck like that, with soap and water.
It was an agonizing procedure and would have to be
done with anesthesia to prevent the patient from going into shock.
Just sounds like the worst thing in the world. In
the treatment of the Coconut grove victims with surface burns,
they gently cleaned the wound, covered the area with gauze
and ointment, and gave the patients antibiotics. The patients recovered

(12:14):
without infections. Doctors also developed a chart used to mark
the area and percentage of a burn on a patient's body,
and that chart is still in use today. It really
does seem like the Coconut Grove was moments away from
disaster at any given time. It took minutes for the
entire thing to literally go up in flames and for
nearly five hundred people to lose their lives, all because

(12:38):
some schmuck didn't care about their safety. Moving on now
to case two House of Cards, the Sampoon Department Store collapse.
So for this next one, campers were in Seoul, South Korea,
on Thursday, June twenty ninth, nineteen ninety five, and taxi
driver Parkman Sux is waiting at a stoplight outside of

(12:59):
the giant five five story Sampong Department Store. He heard
a mighty crack, and before his eyes he saw the building.
He would later recall it just folded as if it
was being destroyed by a demolition crew, the way you
see on television. It just went. In a matter of seconds,
five stories had collapsed into the four floor basement, just

(13:22):
like that. What in the world had happened. Initial suspicions
were a North Korean bomb or a gas leak. In reality,
it was one of the most deadly, non deliberate building
collapses in modern history, caused by human negligence rather than antipathy.
Sampong Department Store was made up of two structures, a

(13:43):
pair of baby pink five story towers connected by an atrium.
That June evening was warm and humid. Between five and
six pm, about two thousand people were escaping the muggy weather,
like people the world over knew how, going shopping and
using somebody else's air conditioning. The rooftop air conditioners had
been roaring most of the day, working hard to cool

(14:05):
down the almost eight hundred thousand square foot space, while
people bustled about the big, rosy colored department store, going
about their day, unaware of the horrors that would follow.
But let's put a pin in that for a second
and talk about how we even got there in the
first place. Seoul had won the bid to host the
nineteen eighty eight Summer Olympics, and that, along with the

(14:26):
general economic success that all of Southeast Asia was enjoying,
injected a ton of capital into the city. Suddenly developers
had a lot more money and freedom to play with.
One such developer was the Sampoon Group, headed by CEO E. June. Initially,
the land was zoned for apartment development in nineteen seventy seven,

(14:46):
and after eleven years construction began. Now, he wasn't a
stupid man. Apartments are good money, sure, but they're pretty expensive.
To run too, you have to deal with tenants, you
have to constantly replace expensive ap appliances. The juice was
kind of not worth to squeeze. Plus, with the Olympics
bid being awarded to Soul in nineteen eighty one, the

(15:07):
focus was shifting from developing residential space to commercial, so
with one easy flip of a switch, he could pump
up the price per square footage of his building. In
nineteen eighty nine, the change in business plan was approved
and the construction plans had to make big changes. Sampooing
Development wanted to build a department store.

Speaker 3 (15:28):
The company that initially won the bid for the construction
of the apartment buildings was called Wu Sung Construction. When
they were told to make changes to the set plans,
they balked. The apartments were supposed to be four stories tall,
with four additional levels, including two levels of underground parking
under the buildings. It was built as a flat slab building, which,

(15:50):
for campers who aren't architecture students, picture flat slabs of
concrete held up by columns of concrete at equal intervals,
like most parking structures. Naked flat slabs okay anyway, By
the time the change came through the foundation and the
lower floors were complete, so Sampoong wanted Wusung to make

(16:12):
some major changes on a budget. They wanted to remove
support columns through the center and add escalators straight up
both of the buildings. They wanted to add rooftop HVAC systems,
and they wanted to add another floor on top of
the fourth floor to include a roller skating rink because

(16:33):
it was the nineties and roller skating was cool.

Speaker 2 (16:35):
Excuse me, roller skating will never not be cool.

Speaker 3 (16:37):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, you're not wrong. It's fun. But when's
the last time you saw a roller rink? Okay? Now
I'm no structural engineer, but if you build the base
of a stable house of cards, change your mind, core
out the middle and add a bunch of weight on top.

(16:58):
In my very unprofessional opinion, I think you may have
some issues. In another strange, strange decision, they didn't add
any why bracketing or cross beams to their support columns
on the fourth floor, so there was no weight distribution.
There's a guy on TikTok called Disastrous History who described

(17:18):
it best. It's like putting a pancake on a chopstick.
The chopstick is going to punch a hole right through
the pancake unless you add something to distribute the pressure.
Wu Sung Construction, which was not run by graduates from
Clown College, saw the writing on the wall and said, hm, nah, bro,
we're good. And you know, Sampung was totally reasonable about it,

(17:43):
by which I mean they fired Wusung, But Wusong was
cool with it and took their toys and went home.
And for the record, later investigations found that the construction
on the foundation and lower floors were stable and had
nothing to do with the later disaster. If Wusung had
completed construction as planned, it's very possible that the building
would have remained intact. Oh lord, Well, Sampoong was in

(18:07):
a bit of a bind because of the development boom.
Many construction companies were booked out for the foreseeable future,
and in order to keep that local economy booming, foreign
construction companies weren't allowed to do work in Korea. But
on the bright side, work was done quickly, shoddily, and
supervision was lax at best, so they had that going

(18:27):
for them yeay, So you know, thinking on their feet,
Sampong ended up starting the construction themselves. No local official
rubber stamped the new plans. They were able to make
the changes with zero oversight.

Speaker 2 (18:44):
Well, Katie, you can totally trust big corporations to do
the right things. I don't know why you're I mean,
we don't need regulation of anything right, because the companies
they'll just do the right thing because they're the bestest
people in the world.

Speaker 3 (18:56):
You're right, you are correct. You know, I'd be surprised
if the changes weren't made in kran on those you
know architectural sheets, you know with those cute backwards letters
like little kids use. Because get this, a number of

(19:18):
support columns were removed in order to add the escalators.
These support columns were replaced by smaller support columns placed
at irregular intervals, which couldn't carry as much weight and
didn't distribute the weight of the fifth floor evenly, putting
immense strain on the fourth floor. And unfortunately for the

(19:39):
cool kids of the nineties, the skate rink plan went
up in smoke and was replaced with plans for eight
traditional Korean restaurants.

Speaker 2 (19:48):
Yeah, and because Korean restaurants guests sit on the floor,
Sampoon Group leadership wanted to include a heated flooring system
called an ondole. This added four feet of thickness with
water pipes running through concrete flooring, which has got to
be one of the weirdest unnecessary extravagances I have ever
heard of. Like, that's like having a coffee maker in

(20:10):
your car. It's just bizarre, Like would it be nice? Sure,
but do you need it?

Speaker 3 (20:16):
No?

Speaker 2 (20:16):
Put a wood floor in there and your butt will
warm it up in ten seconds. She's so stupid, and
it must have cost a fortune.

Speaker 3 (20:24):
It's just so heavy. It was so heavy.

Speaker 2 (20:27):
Oh God, I bet so. Restaurants also require a lot
more equipment than a roller rink. Think refrigeration systems, cook tops, stoves, fryers.
That's a lot of additional weight that the original plan
didn't call for. Three HVAC units were installed on the roof,
weighing a total of forty five tons while empty and

(20:48):
double that while full in the summer. Wow. The roof
was later found to be a quarter of the strength
required to hold the units a quarter. By the time

(21:24):
the department store opened on July seventh, nineteen ninety, the
store stood out from the gray monolith of the buildings
that surrounded it. It was giant and pink. It was
initially a huge success, boasting forty thousand shoppers per day.
They were raking in money hand over fist. They brought
in like half a million dollars US every day. It

(21:45):
was a standard department store. The top floor was the restaurants,
the fourth were household goods, then the men's clothing, women's clothing,
first floor was miscellaneous goods, foreign brands, and cosmetics. The
first floor of the basement was appliance, bookstores and supermarkets,
and then the next two were underground parking along with
the employee cafeteria. Below that was the machine room. For years,

(22:09):
the building passed safety inspections. God only knows how. Probably
little money changed hands, I suspect, but the structural changes
were already putting immense pressure on the building. The degradation
of the building was put into overdrive in nineteen ninety
three when tenants of buildings to the east of the
department store complained about the noise from those ginormous ac units.

(22:31):
Now reasonably, the department store agreed to move the units
to the west side of the buildings unreasonably. Instead of
shelling out the cash to hire cranes and crews to
move the units safely. They put each one of those
fifteen ton units on wheels and just dragged them clear
across the rooftop. Immediately, cracks in the rooftop appeared, and

(22:53):
one of the support columns was driven downward into the
building and cracked. I'm sure it'll be fine. I just
can't fathom these people every morning for the next two years,
as the ac kicked on, every morning, the cracks grew
and grew and grew, until the evening of June twenty ninth,

(23:13):
nineteen ninety five, almost five years to the day of
their opening. The facilities manager it arrived to work that
morning to a note from the night security guard reporting
strange noises from the roof during the night. A couple
hours later, the facilities manager noticed large cracks on one
of the support columns in one of the fifth floor restaurants.

(23:34):
The column dubbed Column five E by disaster researchers because
it was the first column to fail.

Speaker 3 (23:41):
Yeah, I don't think you want to be named like
you don't want to be the named column in an
investigator's report.

Speaker 2 (23:48):
Now it had cracks measuring four inches in width, not
length width, So that's like your hand width of crack.
That's bananas. So in response, the fifth floor was closed
to the public. Ah problem solved. Then around noon, customers
started to hear loud, creaking noises and felt vibrations in

(24:10):
the building. The facilities manager believed that the AC units
were the reason for the noises and vibrations, so he
had them turned off. At four pm, a meeting was
held between the head manager, the facilities manager, the Sampoong board,
including e June, and the structural engineer who had built
the store. The structural engineer rang the alarm. He told

(24:31):
them in no uncertain terms that they should evacuate the
store and close for immediate emergency repairs. E June refused.

Speaker 3 (24:40):
They had two.

Speaker 2 (24:41):
Thousand souls in the store. They were making way too
much money to close. Strangely enough, though, e June and
the rest of the board did leave the building comfortably
and safely without warning customers or staff of any imminent danger.

Speaker 3 (24:56):
One nineteen year old employee named ug One, who worked
in the second floor crystal department, had heard rumors the
fifth floor had completely collapsed and had to be evacuated.
Not true, but you know how the rumor mill is.
She said, I asked if all the other floors were okay,
and just thought it would pass. No one thought it
was a big deal. Another second floor employee, Park Sung Kian,

(25:19):
who sold children's clothes, said I heard rumors at the
restaurant floor the fifth floor had sunk and that they
couldn't turn the air conditioning on because the vibrations would
run right through the building. I didn't really pay attention
to the rumors. These quotes, by the way, are from
the book Collapse When Buildings Fall Down by Philip Warren,
which was one of our sources for this case. It's

(25:40):
really good. He only dedicated one chapter to this case,
and it was just like filled with information. I recommend
reading it if you would like more info. At five
forty pm, customers and employees heard a loud crack from
the top floor and the ceiling above them literally shifted.

(26:00):
Seven minutes later, customers heard a louder noise from above.
At that point, emergency alarm sounded and the employees began
trying to evacuate customers. At five point fifty two, the
entire building shook violently. Park Sung Kian recalls the immediate
panic around her. She said, I just started running with
them without thinking, but I didn't get very far before

(26:22):
I was hit on the head by a concrete block
from the ceiling and I passed out.

Speaker 2 (26:25):
Oh God.

Speaker 3 (26:27):
The AC units had fallen through the roof into the
fifth floor, sending the fifth floor slamming down to the
rest of the building, taking the rest of the floors
down with it. When rescuers arrived, they were hit with
some immediate issues. They realized that their best chances of
rescuing anyone was searching on the edges of the collapse.
Anyone toward the center of the building was most likely crushed. Then,

(26:49):
fires had broken out throughout the rubble, most likely caused
by the cars parked underground, but they had no way
of knowing that at the time. It could have been
caused by explosives or an active gas leak. Rescue teams
made the decision to douse the flames with water. This
had a paradoxical effect. On one hand, survivors who were
trapped would have access to water, but on the other other,

(27:13):
survivors would beat their demise under a deluge of water
meant to save them. The US military sent troops for
aid and requests for equipment like jackhammer, steel cutters, and
arc lights were being sent to the public. Meanwhile, in
the building park, Sung Hyun came back to consciousness in
complete darkness. She was disoriented and took some time to

(27:34):
come to grips with her situation. She realized that she
was somewhere in the basement, surrounded by rubble in an
oppressive heat. She started moving around rubble, trying to shift
some to possibly find some daylight, but she quickly exhausted
herself and fell asleep. When she awoke again, she heard
a familiar voice nearby, sobbing. It was one of her coworkers,

(27:55):
a woman named Hey Chung. When Sung Hyun called out,
Hey Chung responded screaming for help. She said she thought
that something had impaled her through her side and she
was badly injured. Oh my god, Sung Hyun told her
to stay calm and to save her energy, but as
she said later in an interview, Hey Chung was in

(28:16):
so much pain she just couldn't cope.

Speaker 2 (28:19):
Oh my God, bless her heart. When asked how she
spent her time in the darkness, Sung Hun said she
slept most of the time. People ask how you can
sleep in such a condition, but you can't actually sleep
better in a situation like that. By sleeping, you escape,
you're able to deny the reality. She clarified. I completely
get this. I slept, woke up, slept, woke up tens

(28:42):
of times. I dreamt too. A Buddhist monk I was
close to appeared in one of my dreams and showed
me a painting of an apple on rice paper. I
thought it was a good omen. In another dream, I
saw my cousin at a swimming pool. I asked her
what the date was. She told me the date. I
thought five days had passed since the collapse. I can't

(29:03):
find a specific account of what happened to Sun Kion's friend,
but a woman named Hai Chung is listed on the
Sampong Department store memorial. Ji Juan decided that she was
going to do her best to help herself. She felt
around in the darkness and was able to work out
that she was in the household utilities department. There were knives, scissors,

(29:25):
jagged pieces of broken glass. She managed to find a lighter,
She said, I flicked it on, but there was nobody there.
I was alone. I saw I was injured in a
few places and began to feel all over my body.
I felt something wet and realized it was blood. She
had a wound on her head and one on her back.

(29:47):
She took some of her clothing and used the scissors
she found to make a bandage for herself. So resourceful. Meanwhile,
nine people were pulled from the rubble on June thirtieth,
and more were able to be pulled out on July first.
Two died on the way to the hospital. One rescuer
explained the dangers that the survivors were in. I just
discovered five people dead in one place. They were alive

(30:09):
when I was there about four hours ago. They were
suffocated by toxic smoke. Despite the toxic smoke and fires
and the immense amount of death, hope was still in
the air. On the first of July, rescue workers had
made their way to the third basement floor via an
intact stairway, which led to a staff locker room, which
was blocked by slabs of concrete. Through the concrete though,

(30:33):
they heard shouts and immediately got to work cutting their
way through the slabs. There they found twenty four cleaning staff,
all alive all together, most of them older and severely dehydrated.
The widest hole the rescuers could manage without risking structural
damage was twenty inches in width, but the twenty four
all managed to squeeze their way through by covering themselves

(30:56):
in cooking whale. One survivor of fifty three year old
maintenance man said that the way they kept their hope
alive was by relying on each other. We often held
hands and just persuaded each other not to lose hope
of being rescued. It's such an inspiring story, just hope
and human resilience, isn't it. I mean, I cannot imagine

(31:18):
being trapped for two days in a sweltering basement of
a collapsed building, and in the dark too, and still they.

Speaker 4 (31:25):
Chose to give each other hope. It's so beautiful. That's
the best of us, you know, stuff like that. Yeah,
that rescue was kind of the limit for the rescue teams,
though the officials decided that the department store was too dangerous.
There was one elevator shaft still standing, but it started
tilting over the last few days. Five hundred relatives of

(31:46):
the missing were waiting at the site for news, and
when they heard of the plans to stop rescue, efforts.
They were of course furious. In fact, a few of
them started fighting with the riot police while they were
sobbing begging for the safety officials to keep the search going.
On Sunday, rescuers were able to secure the elevator shaft
and the search resumed. That same afternoon, they were able

(32:09):
to rescue another store employee, twenty two year old E
Yun Jung. A full nine days later, Choi Yongsuk was rescued,
and everyone.

Speaker 2 (32:18):
Was sure that he was the last survivor. He'd survived
that long because it was monsoon season and he'd been
able to drink some rain water. Rescue efforts were shifted
toward recovery efforts. Despite this, Sun Kun and ji Wan
were still alive in their little air pockets. In addition
to the risk of starvation and dehydration, they were now

(32:39):
in danger of being crushed by debris being moved around
by the recovery efforts. Chi Huan remembered that the ceiling
was gradually sinking and eventually closed off all the space
to one side of me. At one point, the ceiling
literally came this close to my nose, she said, as
she's holding her hand just a couple of inches from
her face. Oh my god.

Speaker 3 (33:00):
Yeah, reading these two women's account it just gives you,
like such chills. It's like watching like a horror movie.
It's oh, it is a horror movie.

Speaker 2 (33:08):
Absolutely.

Speaker 3 (33:10):
Like I remember reading about her flicking on the lighter
and I was like, no, don't do it, because there's
gasses that I remembered. I'm reading an account of something
that actually happened. I'm like, Okay, take a breath. She
told an interviewer that she could hear rescue workers. I
would call out, bang anything I could get my hands on.

(33:31):
At times, you could hear everything. It felt like you
could reach out and touch them. It seemed so close,
but there was no response. You start to lose hope
that you'll be rescued. Your thoughts just oscillate violently. I
won't die. Could I die?

Speaker 4 (33:47):
Yes?

Speaker 3 (33:47):
I probably will die. All hope was not lost, though.
On the thirteenth day, sunlight suddenly opened up over her.
She said, suddenly there was a hole above my feet
and I heard a voice. Is there anyone down? There?
Is anybody alive? I answered, But they didn't seem to

(34:08):
hear me. I didn't think I was that weak, but
they couldn't hear my voice. They asked me to move
my feet, so I moved my feet. I had to
let them know I was alive. What if they thought
I was dead and passed by. I moved my feet
a lot, and that part, honestly did bring a tear
to my eye. Reading the account is like I moved
my feet a lot, is like Oh. Hart Ji Juan

(34:31):
was pulled out and rushed to the hospital. Meanwhile, Sung
Yun was trapped in a space the size of a coffin.
Oh God, the ceiling was coming closer and closer to her.
She was trapped on her stomach with such little space
that she couldn't roll over.

Speaker 2 (34:46):
I seriously think I would lose my mind, like I
cannot even imagine. I can only hope that maybe they
were so delirious from like hunger and thirst that maybe
it made it a little bit unreal and floaty. But
it just sounds like absolute hill.

Speaker 3 (35:00):
Yeah, it's horrific. A full four days later, she heard
voices again, and she managed to grab a metal pipe
and bang on the concrete around her while yelling. She
couldn't hear anything, but the sound of a forklift engine
started nearby. She kept yelling, hoping to be heard over
the deafening noise as it seemed to roll over her.

(35:22):
The engine stopped and she heard the forklift operator say
there's someone down there, and then the sound of digging. Finally, miraculously,
she saw the face of her angel above her. She said,
I saw his face, and my only thought was that
I was going to live. I could finally leave this darkness.

(35:46):
After seventeen days, Sung Hyun would be the last survivor
pulled from the rebel. She and Ji Juan were able
to make full physical recoveries, although the mental impact of
their experience would leave lasting scars. All In all, five
hundred and two people died in the collapse. In aftermath,
over nine hundred people were injured, with six still missing.

(36:10):
It is the largest peacetime disaster in Korean history. Investigators
set out to understand exactly what had happened. They interviewed
Sampong's chairman e June and his son e Han Song,
who happened to be the CEO NEPO Baby. The investigation
quickly became a criminal investigation. They hired a group of

(36:32):
structural engineers to look at the plans for the building
to understand exactly what went wrong and to perform a
forensic engineering analysis of the collapse. The engineer in charge
was Professor Chung Lahan from don Kuk University. Upon looking
at the photos of the intact building actually going to
the disaster site and looking at the rubble and looking
at the plans, Chung and his team were horrified. The

(36:56):
building had no cross beams or steel framework, which basically
meant their there is no redundancy if the columns failed.
Remember the chopstick pancake analogy earlier in the episode. Yeah,
no weight transfer further the fifth floor, which is what
made that first construction company Bock put huge strains on
the fourth floor.

Speaker 2 (37:17):
And then they took a look at the AC units.
Turns out those units were designed to be placed on
the ground, which explains why they were so heavy and
vibrated the whole damn building when turned on. So why
were they on the roof? Well, the board was concerned
that the noise of the units on the ground would
cause noise complaints from the nearby suburbs, So instead of

(37:38):
spending more for quieter units or getting some noise barriers
for the units on the ground, they decided to put
ninety tons of AC unit on a roof that was
not designed to withstand one quarter of that weight.

Speaker 3 (37:50):
And then they got complaints anyway and had to move
the units and cut corners doing that too.

Speaker 2 (37:57):
Yep, and that is ultimately what sped the collapse. According
to Professor Chung's report, he and his colleagues concluded that
there was an quote illegal alteration of the architectural design
and usage purpose of the building, driven by human ignorance, negligence,
and greed. Damn share how you feel, doctor.

Speaker 3 (38:14):
Chill Right tells Ellam.

Speaker 2 (38:17):
They placed blame on the planning authorities and on Sampung management.
Moving the AC units the way they did certainly sped
up the collapse, but it probably would have happened anyway.
Since the building opened, Cracks and leaks had appeared throughout
the building, and management did nothing to address the underlying cause.
It's like this pace was, this place was put together
with like popsicle sticks and snot. I mean, it's just

(38:38):
the worst. How anybody thought this was okay is beyond me.
This was not the first time that the devil may
care attitude toward construction safety had caused death and destruction
in Korea, meaning they should have freaking known better. Just
a year earlier, in nineteen ninety four, Song Sue Bridge
and Soul collapsed during rush hour, killing thirty two peas people.

(39:01):
In nineteen ninety five, a subway construction site gas explosion
in Tigoo killed one hundred and one It didn't take
long for people to connect the dots that all of
these projects had taken place after the development boom in
the eighties. One newspaper headline read endless disaster, disaster disaster,
and it wasn't hard to figure out why construction companies

(39:23):
were stretched thin so corners were being cut. The government
officials cared more about the money being made than the
safety of the citizens. The government started doing some inspections
and the results were chilling. They found that quote, fourteen
percent of all high rise structures in the country were
unsafe and needed rebuilding, eighty four percent needed repair work,

(39:45):
and only two percent of such buildings met government's standards.
What a horrific, horrific revelation. As a Korean structural engineer,
I feel embarrassed, said one of the engineers working on
the Sampoon investigation. At least when it came to Sampung,
though consequences would be brought in no small part due

(40:05):
to public outcry. That's what it frickin takes. We have
to raise hell. It took public demonstrations and outcry from
families of the victims. One father, jog Gwang Jin, who
lost three daughters in the collapse, said people should do
the best at their jobs. This accident happened because they didn't.
Three daughters. Unbelievable. E June was found guilty of criminal

(40:30):
negligence and negligent homicide and sentenced to ten and a
half years in prison. His son, Ihung's son was found
guilty of corruption and accidental homicide and served seven years. Unfortunately,
June's sentence was reduced to seven years upon appeal. Doesn't
feel long enough, does it. Shortly after his release, e

(40:50):
June was hospitalized for complications related to diabetes, high blood pressure,
and kidney disease, and passed away in two thousand and three.
He was eighty one. The last report of Hong Sun
we could find reported that he was doing work as
an evangelist in Mongolia in the early two thousands, So
God knows what he's up to now. It's probably starting
a cult he'd be in his mid seventies now, so

(41:12):
hopefully he stayed the hell away from the construction business.
At least. The Sampong Department Store memorial is located in
a park. It's a twelve foot tall marble statue carved
with the names of each of the victims. Family members
still go to clean and care for it. Initially, the
sight of the collapse was going to be used for
the memorial, but it was decided that the land was

(41:33):
too valuable to give up. That hits your wrong, doesn't
it that it came down to money again. There's luxury
apartments standing there now, Isn't that nice?

Speaker 3 (41:43):
The scariest thing about these stories to me is that
there's no real ill will involved, no targeted rage, no revenge,
just humdrum ban all greed. But it's like what mister
Rogers said, right when we see scary things on the news,
look for the helpers. You will always find people who

(42:05):
are helping. Each and every one of those first responders,
doctors and nurses in the story are absolute heroes. They
truly deserve the world. Always look for the helpers, campers,
they're always there.

Speaker 2 (42:21):
Came into that, so that was a pair of infuriating
and wild ones. Right, campers, you know we'll have another
one for you next week, but for now, lock your doors,
light your lights, and stay safe until we get together
again around the True Crime Campfire. And if you haven't
booked your spot yet on the Crime Wave True Crime
Cruise from November three through November seventh from Fort Lauderdale

(42:43):
to the Bahamas, get on it, y'all. Join Katie and
Me plus last podcast on the Left, Scared to Death
and Sinisterhood for a rock and good time at sea.
You can pay all at once or set up a
payment plan, but you gotta have a fan code to
book a ticket, So go to Crimewave atsea dot com,
slash camp fire and take it from there. And as always,
we want to send a grateful shout out to a

(43:04):
few of our lovely patrons. Thank you so much to Selina, Caroline,
Jessica and Jeremy. We appreciate y'all to the moon and back.
And if you're not yet a patron, you're missing out.
Patrons of our show get every episode add free at
least a day early, sometimes even two, plus tons of
extra content like Patrons only episodes and hilarious post show discussions,

(43:26):
and once you hit the five dollars and up categories,
you give me more cool stuff a free sticker at
five dollars, a rad enamel pin or fridge magnet while
supplies last at ten virtual events with Katie and me.
And we're always looking for new stuff to do for you,
so if you can, come join us at patreon dot
com Slash True Crime campfire

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know

Dateline NBC

The Herd with Colin Cowherd

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Disaster Class: Two Deadly Man-Made Disasters

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}Stuff You Should Know

Dateline NBC

The Herd with Colin Cowherd

All Episodes

Disaster Class: Two Deadly Man-Made Disasters

Stuff You Should Know