Dark Korea — Korean True Crime & Mysteries

Dark Files: Structural Collapses — When the Ground Gave Way

Dark Korea — Korean True Crime & Mysteries

Show Notes

A building is a promise. You walk in, you go to sleep, you cross a river on your way to school, and you trust that someone, somewhere, did the work to keep it standing.

This is Dark Files. These are the collapses.

April 1970. An apartment block in Seoul, built in six months for the city's poorest residents, comes down just four months after it was finished. Residents had reported cracks in the columns nineteen days earlier. Thirty-three people died.

October 1994. On a Friday morning rush hour, a section of Seongsu Bridge drops into the Han River, taking a city bus with it. Thirty-two people are killed, nine of them schoolgirls.

June 1995. The Sampoong Department Store folds in on itself in seconds. Five hundred and two people never come home.

February 2014. New university students gather in a resort gym under a roof carrying snow no one had cleared. Ten of them die.

And January 2022. Concrete is being poured on the top floor of a new tower in Gwangju when floor after floor gives way. Six workers are lost.

Five collapses across more than half a century. In almost every one, the warning signs were there. The question each story asks is the same: why didn't anyone listen?

In this compilation: • Episode 45: Wau Citizen Apartment Collapse (와우아파트 붕괴 참사) • Episode 22: Seongsu Bridge Collapse (성수대교 붕괴 사고) • Episode 4: Sampoong Department Store Collapse • Episode 93: Gyeongju Mauna Ocean Resort Gym Collapse (경주 마우나오션리조트 체육관 붕괴 사고) • Episode 92: Gwangju Hwajeong I-Park Collapse (광주 화정 아이파크 외벽 붕괴 사고)

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