Tabuniar Mariel G.

June 22, 2015

WAWOO
APARTMENT
COLLAPSED

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 December 26, 1969. It took only
six months to be built.

This is the picture of explaining the situation about collapse. The shack existed under the
apartment.

Wawoo apartment 15 dong collapsed in April 8, 1970 at 6:40 a.m.. The 32 residents in the
apartment were killed and 38 residents were injured. One shack was buried under the 15 dong.
One person in the shack was killed and 2 people were injured. Only 15 of 30 households were
living in this apartment. If didn't exist empty houses, more people are killed or injured.

In the early of construction this apartments had many problems :

1. Construction company didn't check the geological features. They thought the strong granite
existed in higher part of the mountain, so it can withstand the apartment.
2. Real residents in apartments for the low incomer are not the low incomer but the middle class.
But builders had thought the low incomer who only had little furnitures would be moving into
the apartments. So the structure of the apartments were very weak.
3. There was a rule that Seoul City hall only did erection of frameworks and resident did interior
construction. But residents couldn't install the railings in stairs and rooftop. As a result, around
10 people fell down the stairs without railings.
4. Budget was very small. So builders built the apartment low on the construction materials.

5. When built on the slope, pillars must be built on bedrock. But the pillars existed on soil and
only seven pillars withstood the apartment.

After the collapse, according to facts revealed by investigation, the number of 19mm
rebar(steel bar) used in each pillar must be 70 but builders only use 5. And concrete was very
weak because when made concrete, cement, sand and pebbles are mixed but mixing ratio of
cement was very small. The biggest mistake made by the builders was the fact that they
misthought the design load(the load that is expected to act on building materials). The actual load
exceeded 600kg per 1m^2 more than the design load. The reason of excess was residents had so
many briquettes in house and floored rooms with flat stones(wide and thick stones that made the
floor of the room) which was very heavy.
This collapse could be prevented. Because the residents notified the fact that pillar
sank and cracks were formed in the wall to Mapo-gu officers but officers ignored it.
After the this accident, Seoul city hall made safety inspectors diagnose the safety of the
built apartments for the low incomers. As a result, 394 apartments were needed reinforcement
among the 405 apartments. 101 apartments were removed during 1971~1977. The cost of
removing the apartments were equal to the cost of building 447 apartments.
Wawoo apartment was the first collapsed building in the history of the Republic
of Korea. This collapse was caused by absurdly low construction cost, short construction period,

poor construction and poor construction supervision. It became the opportunity to strengthen the
monitoring about the next apartments building.
Even if the intentions are good, the process and the results are bad it had better not do it.

Reference: https://storify.com/sjsj209/wawoo-apartment

REACTION:
From the fact findings above, I can say that the structure is not properly designed and a
weak kind of apartment. Being the engineer/builder in a particular project is tough and you
should be very responsible and be prcised in all aspects regarding the project because if you
have mistakes in calculations and in the design, terrible accidents could occur. The location of
the structure to be built should be properly observed and assured that it is safe, the materials to
be used should be in standard and not sub-standard and others. You should think of the full safety
of your project and the people involved in that project most importantly. In this case, the builders
or the engineer/s didnt checked well those possible faults weaknesses of the structure. They
have just assumed those ideas and not properly researched and calculated those things that
should be done. Just like the geological features mentioned above, the builders of this project just
thought that the location of the project has a strong granite which can withstand the structure.
But they were wrong, so it was one of the reason why the structure collapsed. Another is that,
they just only used only 5 rebars in each pillar instead of 70. This can really make the structure
very weak. Maybe they just thought that they could lessen the cost of the project with that idea,
but it wasnt and it got even worst. It was also stated that the budget is very low. For me, if they
know that the budget is very low, the project should be re-designed or they should lessen the
number of storey to avoid much of loads that could make the foundation weak. They shouldnt
have been stucked in the design of the structure knowing that the budget is very low. This
tragedy is very devastating. Maybe this had awaken the minds of everyone like me, that before
starting a project especially in a mountainous places and a project with tall buildings, everybody,
especially the engineer/architect/builder should assure that it is well designed in a prcised and in
an accurate manner, properly calculated and should be economical but a strong structure.