Chapter 128: The Crumbling Fortress (3)
As expected—and defying common sense...
Sampoong took no action at all.
Well, if holding a VIP customer discount event counts as action, then I guess they did do something.
‘...Should I say that’s a relief?’
By this point, nothing could stop the collapse anyway. And if they tried a half-baked repair job now, mistiming it could cause even greater casualties.
In the original Sampoong Department Store collapse, there were about 500 dead and 1,000 injured.
Of course, that’s a lot. That’s an enormous number—but if you think about it, for the sheer size of the building, it’s not actually that many.
The largest department store in Korea, and during peak hours, only about 1,500 people including staff and customers?
This collapse was the kind of disaster where, if you didn’t get out beforehand, you were practically guaranteed to die. Not a single person trapped on the above-ground floors survived. The injured were all those who had already escaped the structure when they were hurt.
In other words, that huge, bustling department store had only 500 people in it?
I don’t know all the details about the Sampoong collapse, but there’s one thing I can reasonably deduce.
“No matter how big the accident... there were already plenty of warning signs before it happened. Collapses always show signs first.”