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Tabuniar Mariel G. June 22, 2015

WAWOO

APARTMENT

COLLAPSED

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The Seoul City Hall wanted to decrease the unlicensed buildings, so they built apartments

for the low incomer. Wawoo apartment was one of those. Wawoo apartment was located in

Changjeon-dong, Mapo-gu, Seoul. This apartment was built on ecember !", #$"$. %t too& only

si' months to be built.

This is the picture of e'plaining the situation about collapse. The shac& e'isted under theapartment.

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Wawoo apartment #( dong collapsed in )pril *, #$+ at " a.m.. The /! residents in the

apartment were &illed and /* residents were injured. 0ne shac& was buried under the #( dong.

0ne person in the shac& was &illed and ! people were injured. 0nly #( of / households wereli1ing in this apartment. %f didn2t e'ist empty houses, more people are &illed or injured.

%n the early of construction this apartments had many problems

#. Construction company didn2t chec& the geological features. They thought the strong granite

e'isted in higher part of the mountain, so it can withstand the apartment.

!. 3eal residents in apartments for the low incomer are not the low incomer but the middle class.

4ut builders had thought the low incomer who only had little furnitures would be mo1ing into

the apartments. So the structure of the apartments were 1ery wea&.

/. There was a rule that Seoul City hall only did erection of framewor&s and resident did interior

construction. 4ut residents couldn2t install the railings in stairs and rooftop. )s a result, around# people fell down the stairs without railings.

. 4udget was 1ery small. So builders built the apartment low on the construction materials.

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(. When built on the slope, pillars must be built on bedroc&. 4ut the pillars e'isted on soil and

only se1en pillars withstood the apartment.

)fter the collapse, according to facts re1ealed by in1estigation, the number of #$mm

rebar5steel bar6 used in each pillar must be + but builders only use (. )nd concrete was 1ery

wea& because when made concrete, cement, sand and pebbles are mi'ed but mi'ing ratio of

cement was 1ery small. The biggest mista&e made by the builders was the fact that theymisthought the design load5the load that is e'pected to act on building materials6. The actual load

e'ceeded "&g per #m7! more than the design load. The reason of e'cess was residents had so

many bri8uettes in house and floored rooms with flat stones5wide and thic& stones that made thefloor of the room6 which was 1ery hea1y.

This collapse could be pre1ented. 4ecause the residents notified the fact that pillar

san& and crac&s were formed in the wall to Mapo-gu officers but officers ignored it.

)fter the this accident, Seoul city hall made safety inspectors diagnose the safety of thebuilt apartments for the low incomers. )s a result, /$ apartments were needed reinforcement

among the ( apartments. ## apartments were remo1ed during #$+#9#$++. The cost of

remo1ing the apartments were e8ual to the cost of building + apartments.

Wawoo apartment was the first collapsed building in the history of the 3epublic

of :orea. This collapse was caused by absurdly low construction cost, short construction period,

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poor construction and poor construction super1ision. %t became the opportunity to strengthen the

monitoring about the ne't apartments building.

;1en if the intentions are good, the process and the results are bad it had better not do it.

3eference https