#300: Korea’s Death Mall - 502 Dead & 40 Missing Inside High End Department Store

29:37Now, if you were to stick another circular piece of paper on the point of the pencil and then stick another paper on top, it's much harder for you to stick through even though it's just paper. It's very hard to punch through two layers. That's the drop panel. That's what it's called. So think of it as instead of walking through the mud with sneakers, you're walking through with heels. The difference is massive. Your heels are going to poke into the soil. But Lee, rich businessman, owner of a crazy lucrative construction company, says, eh, should be okay. He knew that this was a bad idea. He knew this was dangerous, but it saved him money.

30:15So he was all aboard. He said, you know what? It's fine. Columns are strong. But they're not, especially when you take out half the steel rods, like half the skeleton of the column is now gone. But the worst, the biggest hazard of this whole building was the fifth floor. It should not have existed. The building was not designed to hold the weight of another floor. It sounds like, ah, it's just another floor. But that is an additional 25 % of the overall weight added, if not more. That is huge. At first, he told his team, it's going to be for a roller skating rink, which honestly would have been a lot safer.

30:52Less traffic, not as much furniture. But instead, he said, you know what makes more money? Restaurants. Restaurants are insanely heavy. Commercial ovens, commercial walk-in freezers, industrial-sized refrigerators, lots of water. Lots of water is heavy. since there was going to be multiple kitchens on that floor. I mean, you're talking AC up there is going to be intense. Restaurants are also more densely packed than a roller skating rink. The entire weight distribution and calculations were going off the walls. You know, those big Amazon delivery trucks. Well, the weight of the fifth floor was about 100 of those delivery trucks.

31:34Imagine parking 100 of those on the roof where it should not be. That's just the fifth floor. That's not, oh, and he wanted to do heated floors for the fifth floor, which added 2 ,415 tons of weight just for heated floors. And on top of that, there was even more. So the roof of the fifth floor on building A were these giant AC cooling towers. They weighed 87 tons each. There's three of them. So the total of that to visualize, imagine sticking two houses on top of the roof of a mall that is already unstable. This is, I mean, this is crazy. Just on top of the roof. Now, here's where things go really wrong on the roof.

32:18So firstly, the AC towers on this specific roof is a death wish. The vibrations that the AC creates, it only further destabilizes the building's foundation. That's what causes cracks, vibration, movement. And so since the get-go, like opening day of this mall, they could see the red flags. The vibrations and the weight of the heavy AC cooling towers, they were causing water leaks onto the fifth floor because the water would leak out of the AC, there would be a crack and it would flow through. But the biggest, biggest atrocity of what they did on that roof, the AC towers were facing towards a nearby apartment building.

32:53All the residents of that apartment building were like, the AC towers are so loud. We're filing complaints. You've got to do something about it. So they had to move the AC towers to the other side of the roof. Now to do something like that, what do you do? You have to call an industrial cranes you got to have a ton of professionals on site to make sure that it's done safely and securely it's a pricey relocation lee very wealthy mogul said too expensive get a couple of dollies wow so they just scooped it over they didn't even scoop it because there's no dollies that can carry that much weight they basically dragged it and if you see pictures of that roof from like opening year there's cracks all over wow and now they move the acs to the other side and what do they do they vibrate and cause even more cracking now to even the other side of the building now here's where it gets kind of unexpected this one i wasn't expecting at all one of the first stores that opened up inside this mall actually contributed to the collapse a bookstore.

34:00Did you know Korean books are even heavier than foreign books because they use a higher portion of stone powder in the paper. A year and a half after opening, the bookstore would be relocated from the second floor of the mall down to the basement because that bookstore was causing so much damage to the building from the sheer weight of the books and the shitty construction. If this had been a well-built building, there wouldn't have been any damage so they realized something is happening yeah there were cracks all over the second floor what there was bending in the floor there was drooping in the floor the floor was tilted where the bookstore was wow and nobody did anything no the entire building started to lean a little bit and all it would take would be 20 seconds for the entire building to crumble and literally not a single part of this rescue was easy.

34:57End of June in South Korea is typically a very rainy season. The rain was pouring down on the rescue efforts. I mean, in theory, it might have been good since when a building collapses, there's always small fires trapped inside the rubble. You've got open electrical wires, you've got appliances, and poisonous gas, they start to spread, which, you know, pretty quickly could kill any survivor that's trapped inside that manages to find an air pocket. So the rain in theory would have been helpful, but it was just a massive inconvenience. Like the rain was not enough to put out the fires, but it was enough to slow down the rescuers.

35:33Firemen had to come in and try to calm any potential flames. And the first 16 hours of rescue efforts, five people were rescued. So there was some progress. And unfortunately, one of the survivors would die on the way to the hospital. Then 24 people who were trapped in the same air pocket were rescued. They were pulled out by rope. Nothing was going smoothly. I mean, they pulled them out, but there were still hundreds and hundreds of people that were unaccounted for. And the rescuers were nonstop sprinting from place to place. They're crawling inside of holes that are already unstable. They're shimmying themselves through the collapsed basement level, squeezing past these broken shards of glass beams, like shining their flashlight into whatever nook and cranny they could find screaming to see if anyone survived.

36:21They would dig holes the size of a kitchen sink and just start crawling in there. They'd like put their lives in danger for every second that they were there because they just wanted to save people. A lot of the people in the mall, because it was a Tuesday afternoon, were young moms and children. the family members of the missing and the victims they all gathered they tried to help random civilians that had no family members in there they were putting their lives on the line to help save people retired doctors grabbed their white coats and went to local hospitals because there were way too many people coming in a ton of ajummas a middle-aged woman they were too old too frail to dig, but they created these organized groups and they would cook for the thousands of rescuers every single day.

37:13But ultimately, the morale for the rescue teams was dying, which sounds bad because I mean, how can your morale die when there's a chance that others need saving, right? But they're working themselves to the edge physically and mentally every single day. And all they're getting after the first initial groups of survivors is bad news. They're just getting bad news. Another body, another body, another body. 10 days had passed and it's the rule of three. Do you know the rule of three? No. Three minutes without oxygen, three days without water, three weeks without food and you'll die. It had been 10 days, no food, no water, limited oxygen and potentially injuries on top of all of that.

37:58The rescuers thought, okay, maybe it's time to go from rescue to recovery. The faster, the better. July is peak monsoon season. It's only going to get worse. We got to go. People said you could smell rotting corpses even if you were blocks away from the site. They start bringing in the heavy machinery. The chief of police asked all the family members who are still present at that site, come on, we got to do one last go before we bring in the machines. Call your loved ones. We can't hear anyone. Maybe we can hear their phone. And so all of them are standing around with their phone calling their missing loved ones.

38:35And they're just trying to listen, but they can't hear a single thing. The US actually would donate these sound detectors to help rescuers find the phones underneath. The Korean government was already equipped with heat sensors, which is typically used to locate bodies. But the heat sensors, they work with infrared light. And when it rains, the raindrops scatter the infrared. And it becomes wildly inaccurate. it. 11 days had passed and now rescuers are like, okay, no one survived. So let's bring in the machinery. Michael thought that he was going to die in there. But on the 11th day of rescue, a rescuer stopped.

39:12He blinked. He scrambled, grabbed his flashlight from his back pocket and flashed it into the hole. Hello? Is anyone there? And he put his ear up against the hole. and this tiny little voice says, I'm here. The other rescuers, they don't even believe him. So he's like, come, come, come. And they all make him say, I'm here again. And everyone starts swarming. I mean, 11 days in, they had to penetrate an extra four feet of thick reinforced concrete to get him out. He was out at 8.30 a.m., 230 hours after the collapse. He was carried out on a stretcher and he waved for the cameras. volunteer rescue workers, they're all cheering.

39:55They're all clapping. I mean, this was the victory that they needed. They're like, take the machines off. We're going back to hand. If Michael survived, there could be others. Meanwhile, Gia did not share this excitement. She thought she was going to die. For the past few days, the concrete on top of her face was coming closer and closer and closer. It was pure torture. The air was getting stuffier and she felt panic the walls are literally closing in on her but in the slowest way possible she wanted to scream like oh my god just squish me already wait she's the 25 year old no oh a different worker yeah oh okay now the anxiety of it about to come down was worse than just dying she said i mean she was buried in a pile of concrete laying on her back so her legs were trapped under a concrete pole.

40:45And she was thankfully in an air pocket, but she can't move. So at first, Gia is screaming her head off, hoping that people can hear her. She's like, hello, I'm here, I'm here. But nobody came. So she just said she kept falling asleep. That's all she could do. I don't know if her brain forced her to sleep. She just said, I kept falling asleep. I kept dreaming that I was home. I just wanted to go home. And I kept thinking, oh my god, my dad is sick. My mom is worrying about me. And now I'm going to be even a bigger burden. 58 hours passed. So like two and a half days in. Remember the rule of three, three minutes, three days without water, three weeks without food.

41:21Two and a half days in, she's so thirsty. At this point, she can't even think about anything but her thirst and water starts flowing. And she takes a sip and she immediately coughs it out. She had rust water coming in. She waited till more water came in. And instead of letting it flowed directly into her mouth because it tasted so disgusting and rusty. She grabbed a piece of her clothing, soaked it in the water, and then just kind of wet her lips with it. She had no idea how many days had passed. All she knew was she was starting to hallucinate. The part where her legs were trapped, she felt like her legs were walking.

41:57She felt like her legs were floating at one point when it clearly wasn't. She was like losing her mind. She was losing sensation on her legs. She And the next thing she knew, there's heavy machine sounds and the concrete's just getting closer and closer and closer. Would they push the concrete until it completely suffocated her? Would they push the concrete till it squished her? Like, what's going to happen? Would the excavator just come down and rip her up? Her bottom legs are stuck, so she'd be ripped in half. Gia felt terror. Sheer terror. she only had like 10 inches left when all of a sudden she hears a voice stop stop do you hear something at around 2 p.m on the 13th day wow a rescuer saw her foot and they yelled if you're alive move your feet Gia tried to wiggle her toes but she didn't even know if it was wiggling because she lost sensation a long time ago and she screamed save me the rescuer clawed through the cement by hand and she just remembered thinking ah i'm found she said it wasn't ah i lived she didn't say it was i survived she just thought i'm found good i don't care if i die right now because at least they found my body so my mom will know her mom was later interviewed and asked like what is the first thing you want to say to your daughter and she said do i even need to say anything and they were trying to ask like did you think your daughter was dead because it had been 13 days and they said did you think she had and her mom stops the journalist and says no i didn't think that i'll never think that because the day she dies is the day i die after 285 hours gia was rescued and at that point the ceiling was so low it was touching her nose she was not even inches but centimeters away from death and everyone was like okay that's crazy right?

43:57But there's no way there's going to be more survivors. There's only so many miracles that the universe can give us. On the 15th day, another woman is rescued. Let's call her Sammy. She was trapped in a small pocket of air in the children's clothing section. She heard the voice of her colleagues screaming, help me. And she just kept screaming, panicking, help me. There's this concrete pinning my waist down. She was getting crushed and there was no way Sammy could even get to her and she tried telling her it's okay it's okay but after a day or two there was no more noise sammy said you know all she did was try and fall asleep she had no idea how long she was in there sammy would be the last survivor found in the rubble there would be no more miracles after that before we get to the depressing recovery um south korea did try to bring up the morale of the country and the three survivors so michael gia and sammy almost became these beacons of hope for people michael was seen as this national hero for not only somehow miraculously surviving in the rubble for 11 days but also his iconic wave on the stretcher companies started offering him gigs to model for them schools were offering the three full-ride scholarships there had been this stereotype that the younger generation were weak and not as tough as their parents in south korea but this was completely obliterated this idea and just like michael gia the one who survived 13 days she made headlines because when she was pulled out of there reporters asked her while she was on the stretcher how do you feel any plans now that you've been saved and she said i want to go on a date with the oppa that rescued me and people thought it was such an unhinged hilarious fun answer to such a serious serious depressing situation the last three survivors were asked, what food do you want to eat the most?

45:51Michael said, Coca-Cola. I want to drink an ice cold Coke. Gia said, iced coffee. Sammy said, I just want some ice cream. Every soda, iced coffee, ice cream brand went nuts trying to sign these three for brand endorsements. Gia also kept making jokes like nobody knew if they could keep laughing or not. When she was rescued, she complained, why'd you guys come so fast? I could have stayed there a few days longer. Let me go back in there. Michael had to have his head shaved to run some tests And he was so embarrassed Anytime reporters ran into his hospital room He would put on his little beanie, his little hat And I think that these are the stories that people wanted to focus on Because the other side was just so dark Side note, almost all the rescues Especially the ones that weren't immediate They were all sub-ground level So they were all in the basement The other floors, I mean, this is a picture of what it looked like There was no way that people were going to survive that collapse unless maybe you were on the roof, which probably not even then.

46:51Pengo, the magnate working on the restaurant floor of the fifth floor, he was rescued pretty early on. He had made it kind of basically out. I think he was hit by just some debris. And he said, every single person I spoke to that day, the head chef, my colleagues, customers, I would later see all their names written on the deceased list. Another survivor said, I just don't understand the point of life anymore. Like the people that died, there were nice people. There were really rich people. There were workers like me. There were people who went to church. There were people who studied really hard.

47:30Yet everyone died without even a chance to fight for their lives. So what is the point of anything at all? Families of victims said the nightmare was just never ending. I do want to say that the rescue efforts were admirable the rescuers they did everything but the system itself was flawed Korea didn't have a strong system to respond to these types of crises which like I don't know if they still do with after ito and so on but at the time it was so disorganized family had no idea if loved ones were alive survived, diseased, at a hospital which hospital nobody had a clue the site was left open for people to just come and volunteer and so a lot of people did come and volunteer but there were also a lot of hyenas.

48:11What do you think the hyenas did? They were dubbed hyenas by the media. About 400 hyenas were arrested during rescue efforts. Families are crying. Rescuers are risking their lives. They're stealing stuff? They're pretending to help and stealing designer goods. Wow. When one was arrested, they just callously responded, well they were all gonna go to the dump anyway. Another man was caught volunteering wearing 10 pairs of designer pants. 10 pairs. When asked, why the hell were you stealing 10 pairs of designer pants? He said, what are you talking about? I was saving lives and I got cold in the middle of June.

48:53So I just put on whatever was near me.

49:01Meanwhile, Mr. Zhang was at work when the building fell. He's an attorney. and he didn't hear about it until way later. He was at a hueshik with his coworkers and they were drinking, they're eating and he just had this pit in his stomach when people were like, oh, you didn't hear about the mall? So his wife and his three adult daughters, they loved going to that mall. So he calls his wife, she picks up and he's like, oh my God, thank God. Okay, you're home, right? Are the girls home? Did you hear about what happened at the department store? She's like, what? No, the girls are there shopping. Mr.

49:30Jung's coworker said that he didn't even say anything. One minute he was on the phone, the next minute he was out the door he ran on foot to the department store and all he saw was rubble he started climbing on the rubble in his suit just clawing looking for his girls he went to every single hospital in the city he talked to nurses doctors looked at hospital morgues the day after the collapse he would be told that all three of his children were dead and he said after what my wife and I went through that day, I just hoped that the sky would fall and the earth would give out and we would just all die.

50:10And of course, he feels for every single daughter, but he really felt for his eldest because she had fought and beaten all odds. His eldest daughter went blind when she was 12 years old. She worked harder than anyone he knew, harder than all of his adult co-worker colleagues attorneys combined she ended up getting her master's in special education at UC Berkeley in the United States she came back to teach special education at Seul대 which is the best school in the entire country and her dad said she couldn't see in front of her but she just always had a vision and she fought all these odds to be here and now she's gone there was another family the lee family and mom lee mrs lee she was telling her daughter for months like give up the dreams of the department store and her daughter told her no if i'm gonna be a fashion designer i can't just rent a small shop anywhere i have to make a big statement i'm gonna get foot traffic this is i know it's a lot of money but i've saved up my entire life savings I'm going to rent this tiny little shop.

51:20It's my dream. And she signed the lease two months before the collapse. And Mrs. Lee said all that nagging she did completely forgot about it because the minute that she saw her daughter in that shop, just how much passion she had for what she was doing. How could she not support her? She was at her shop when the building went down. And this part is so dark, but it feels really raw. A lot of families reported feeling shame and guilt afterwards because they were all there. And when survivors were being found, they would see survivors reunite with their families. And they said they would feel intense jealousy because it's only human.

52:01And then immediately they would feel so ashamed for feeling so jealous and it made them feel so gross. But they had this like, oh, that should be me. So after the last remaining survivors were rescued, the government decided they needed to start clearing out the debris. They said it was dangerous to just have it out in the open. So they just started moving the rubble to dump sites. And a lot of victims have not been found yet. So families were at dump sites by themselves, no rescue workers, digging through the rubble. At that point, some of them only found bones. And if there was any flesh, they were unrecognizable.

52:45This mall had been built six years ago. It wasn't even around. I mean, you go and you look at houses in LA, there's houses from like 1920s still up for sale. So for it to collapse, injuring over 900 people, killing 502 people and resulting in 40 people that are still considered missing to this day, it doesn't make sense. The public is like, we want answers. It was revealed that the building was not attacked by North Korea or a group of terrorists. There was no earthquake, no natural disaster. the building went down on its own so obviously there's some sort of human error so they found the owner the lee family and journalists start hounding him with questions and look the way that this man answers questions does not help him in the eyes of the public they said did you do a safety inspection on the building mr lee said look here we've got many people coming in and out of this building do you really like think about it do you really think if we knew that the building was going to go down we would keep it open of course we did safety checks it was received by the president of the building.

53:43I am the owner. I only attend meetings once a week. So you'd have to ask management to clear up those answers. In other words, we have no motive to keep the mall open if we knew it was going to collapse. But as a company, it's not just about injury to customers. It's about company property. He's comparing 502 people dying to losing a mall. Like, I think it's clear what he's trying to say. Like, of course, everything was great and we knew nothing about this because think about it from our standpoint would it be logical to ignore such a big safety concern if it would ruin our company but the delivery was disgusting and nobody believed him he would also try to argue that if the building was so dangerous why was he in building b when it collapsed but he survived building b did not collapse because building b had sturdier columns because it wasn't a mall so they didn't need to display merchandise they didn't have all this heavy machine.

54:38There was like no one in there also. They didn't even have the massive AC units on the roof. And this whole argument backfired when it was revealed the reason that Mr. Lee was even in building B to begin with was because there was an emergency meeting about whether or not the mall should be evacuated. That's what they were doing, debating whether or not to close the mall when the mall collapsed. The meeting lasts for hours and executives were arguing. So Lee and his son, who is the president of the mall, they were arguing that it's going to be bad for business. The board of executives were arguing it doesn't matter because if the building collapses or even if a ceiling falls through and a customer gets injured, that's going to be bad for business.

55:19A few executives left mid-meeting because they got calls of complaints by store owners that like ceilings were crumbling. Literally during the meeting, they left, they went to investigate, they went onto the rooftop. One of the executives saw one of the columns punching through the roof. He turned to his colleague and said, get everyone out now. I don't care. Get him out. They were on the way downstairs when the building went down. The other executives and the Lee family were still arguing when all hell broke loose. People are sprinting towards exits. People were being pushed into clothing racks because now you could hear the groaning.

56:05Like once that groaning hit, you had 20 seconds to get out. Some people were in their underwear just making a run for it. They had been caught in the middle of changing. Now they're booking it. If Lee hadn't cut even more costs and had there been more escalators, more stairwells, more emergency exits, more people could have been saved. Because now there was almost a crowd crush situation on top of the collapse. A domino effect took over. The fifth floor ceiling fell through and now it was on the fourth floor holding the weight. But that was about to crumble and then soon the third floor and it would just all pancake in 20 seconds.

56:41Nobody had a warning. It looks like one of those aluminum soda cans that you step on. The executives in the Lee family heard. They ran out, ran to the hallway, and it's just a cliff. And they see the building on the ground. But still, Chairman Lee acts like he knew nothing. Okay, whenever he was interviewed by journalists, he would make it about himself. One journalist asked if he had anything he wanted to say to the victim's families. And he just said, do you think I wanted this to happen? I have nothing to say. What's crazy about all of this and this whole family is that Lee's daughter-in-law, so the president of the mall, his son's wife, was in the building when it was collapsed.

57:19She was rescued early on. She refused to give her name to rescuers. And people thought that was weird. The rescuers were like, what? Like you don't want your family to know that you're okay. Everyone that could talk was giving their name so that your family can find you. But the very next day, they saw that same woman they rescued on the news, standing next to her husband and her father-in-law, showing her full support. Wow. So a full investigation on the cause of the collapse was ordered by the government. And it revealed a lot. I mean, obviously it revealed all of the things that I've mentioned before.

57:52but on top of that, Chairman Lee was known to constantly change the interior of the mall. Like he was just changing clothes. He would rip out perfectly acceptable lighter wood floors and put in super heavy marble flooring. He did not care about durability. He wanted it to look expensive because more people would come and they would shop and he would make more money. That's all he wanted, more money. He would knock down interior walls to like make more space for merchandise. And with all the new renovations, there were more customers. And it's not like the building crumbled out of nowhere. There were literal bright red warning signs that the Lee family and the executives, they were made aware of.

58:33Two months before the collapse, a thin line emerged on the ceiling of the fifth floor. It was more of an eyesore than anything, but every now and then, tinkle, tinkle, there'd be dust landing on people's faces coming from that crack. Like, that's kind of crazy. If you were dining at the restaurants, your chopsticks would slowly roll to the side and off the table because the floor was tilting but all the customers thought oh man what's wrong with this table? No one thought it was the floor. No one thought it was the building that was leaning. Workers on the restaurant level they would put in a container of raw veggies on the fridge shelf.

59:08It's like an industrial walk-in fridge. They would walk back in and it's like slid all the way to the wall. They'd put it next to the door. It slid all the way down to the wall like five feet down to the wall. Why would it be sliding? That didn't make any sense. The floor of the fifth floor was tilted at a 15 degree angle. The tilting got so bad, the fifth floor restaurants had to be closed. They requested civil engineers to be called in for an inspection. And the main person that called was Lee's son. So he's there with the inspectors. And they're like, yeah, this building is in imminent danger of collapse.

59:43The only option that you have in situations like this is to evacuate, close the entire building down, and we can game plan on what the next steps are. so they already know this before way before like two months before and he's like okay okay let me think about it he didn't think about it instead he hired workers to just hide the cracks by adding more grout and plaster he was like as long as the customers don't see because this month was crucial for them june and july were the summer sale months this is another illegal thing that they're doing in south korea you can only have a sale for two weeks i don't know why i guess it's so that stores can't like try to manipulate you into like buying things, right?

1:00:22Two weeks. The sale is scheduled for July when everybody else has the sale. But the Lees were like, we can be smart. We're going to get our VIP clients early access. So we're going to sell them the product since there are VIPs, we know them. And we're only going to run their card at the sale prices in July. But they can come during June. And they had a lot of VIPs. So June was a very busy, high traffic month for them. Crazy busy. 10 days before the collapse, a customer was sitting at their table on the fifth floor to eat and the whole thing started shaking. She said it was so strange. She thought it was an earthquake or something.

1:01:00But when she told her friends that we're not the mall, they were like, what are you talking about? There was no earthquake. There was nothing on the news. Five days before the collapse, another customer was on the fifth floor eating when it felt like someone doused a bucket of water on their head. And she's like, what the hell looks up there is like a droopy hole it's not even just a hole but like a part of the ceiling that's drooping down at the end there's a hole the employees were made aware of it they tell upper management and they're like it's just hanpung's shitty construction they did not think that water leaks were even in the same possibility as a building collapsing the night before the collapse the security guard noticed the sinkhole in the roof and he called Lee's son and was like, sir, there's a literal sinkhole on the roof.

1:01:48And apparently the son went himself to check it out. And while he's standing there staring at this giant hole, one of the managers of the restaurant comes out and is like, hey, I've been trying to call you for ages now. Look at this shit. Can I show you something? They walk over to one of the columns on the fifth floor near his restaurant. There's an eight inch long crack that's knuckle deep. But that's not even all. The manager is like, I've been waiting for this. OK, I'm paying all this money. And look at that ceiling. Look at that ceiling above the kitchen. It's droopy. And look, look, he puts his phone on the counter, like the cash register of the restaurant.

1:02:18It slides off. He's like, I know it's not my counter. So what's going on? Lee's son checks his watch. He's like, shoot, the stores are about to open for the day. Okay, just why don't we close down all the restaurants on this floor? I guess if you want to stay open, you can stay open, but it's fine. Close down. We're going to figure it out. We'll send up maintenance or something. Maintenance workers were sent up and they're like, guys, this shit is going to go down. Like under no circumstances can we put plaster on anything anymore. Like it's going to go down. Lee's son left the building for about 30 minutes before he was called back in.

1:02:54This time to the fourth floor. A shop owner said, I just heard these like really crazy like noises. And then the whole floor shook for like three minutes. They're like, isn't that right, Susie? Like three minutes. And Susie's like, yeah, three full minutes. Lee's son is like, okay, let me investigate, right? Before he could even figure it out, water starts pouring down the walls of the fifth floor. That's why they turned off the AC units. He said, you know what? Don't close them all. Turn off the AC units and drain the water inside of them because that's what's leaking. And then four hours before the collapse, evacuation orders were given.

1:03:34Lee's son said, let's focus on what matters. don't tell the customers but let's take out all the priceless goods paintings, artwork, jewelry, ancient pottery, super expensive bags let's take it out just in case, we don't know it could flood, it could do something customers, employees they were not evacuated they had no idea they were in a compromised building this is unbelievable it's like the guy's doing everything in his power to kill people why did they not evacuate? because the mall was bringing in about$400 ,000 a day. And they said, we can't lose out on that. Many of the victims died on impact.

1:04:16Others suffocated to death. Others bled out. Some starved to death. And a lot of them drowned to death. When firefighters were trying to put out the fires inside the rubble, the water came in and filled their air pockets. Some of the other survivors could hear them drowning and the firefighters that work that scene, I don't think it's their fault. I think they did their best considering the information and tools they were given, but they still have PTSD. They have nightmares about it. They said they will carry around the guilt for the rest of their lives. In the end, the court sentenced Lee Jun, the chairman, to seven and a half years in prison and his son got seven.

1:04:58You look so shocked, right? But this was actually a big deal. this is what's even crazier about this case okay is the fact that to me i'm like seven years that's nothing right in korea this was landmark this was crazy that they got seven years i mean people don't get me wrong people were still upset it wasn't enough but a lot a lot of people being very cynical skeptical and just realistic they weren't expecting the lee family to get any jail time not saying that they didn't deserve it but that was the track record for the government the reason why they got a lengthy jail time lengthy quote is really dark it's a high-end department store a lot of the victims were wives of influential businessmen to just name a few and not saying that these people's lives hold more value but to give context on whose families were fighting for these offenders to get jail time wife of Samsung Electronics president wife of Daewoo Motors president Wife of the Samsung...

1:05:59Division, electronics division. Oh, okay, okay. Yeah, advisor to Samsung Motors and former head of Korea's Customs Service. Advisor to Samsung Engineering and Construction. Executive for Hyundai Engineering and Construction. Wives of high-powered attorneys, judges, and doctors. A judge's mother. I mean, these were just a few to name. Many of these were the upper echelon of society. These were the elites. and they still only got seven years yes and the worst part is netizens speculate had this been a middle class small or a lower class small they probably would have gotten no jail time but why though what how is that yeah how like i guess it was a blame shifting game so lee's family would actually shift the blame on government workers that they bribed so they would say hey we didn't pass our safety inspection but just say we did and about 30 government workers were fired and arrested as well so because there were so many people to blame it became this game of like who's really at fault was it the gatekeeper the government workers that didn't make sure that the safety inspections were up to date who was it the yeah i don't send all of them to jail 500 people died i agree lee was 72 when he got out he died a year later so we're not too sad about that meanwhile Lee's son Jun is one of the very few families in South Korea many we've talked about that are basically socially exiled they're legally allowed to be in Korea but he is said to have been spotted living in Russia we don't know for sure but the minute he steps foot in South Korea I mean nothing's gonna happen so he's still around right now but he's free yes but I think that he has no money I don't know if he had a lot of hidden money But the family's fortune was completely liquidated And given to the survivors and victims families It's estimated that each family received around 250 ,000 Because there's a lot of people Which honestly is nothing compared to the life of a loved one But trust me, this is not a story where victims families get closure 500 plus people died Like that's a tragedy that is going to be felt nationwide I mean, think about the spider web of people that are either directly or indirectly impacted by this level of loss.

1:08:23Well, the president of South Korea was asked to say something to the victims. And he said, the collapse of the Sampung department store today was 21 days ago. I wish for peace for those who lost their precious lives. I pray for the speedy recovery and for those who were injured. And I express my condolences to the families who suffered an unexpected accident. Thank you. He's at his podium, okay? He stands still for maybe two seconds and he thinks that the camera is off now. And he turns to his aide and says, that should be enough, right? It wasn't even in the tone of like, oh, do you think I should say more?

1:09:00Like, was that, did I convey my emotions correctly? It was like a, I did it, happy, let's go. He doesn't care. Yeah. A lot of the victims' families were upset at the government and even the rescue operations, not the rescue workers, but the operation. They felt like the government wanted to throw some money at the victims' families, start cleaning up the rubble, and make use of the land again. The victims' families requested a memorial. Not to give a comparison, but later on this comparison does come up a lot in Korean media sources. But like 9-11 in the US, I mean, that is crazy real estate if you think about it.

1:09:43That is prime real estate. but out of respect for the tragedy there is a memorial there you go there to you remember these families you remember these victims everyone that lost their lives but the government said this is such a good area of gangnam it's like center like every time someone drives through here they're gonna have to be reminded of that and like what about the real estate prices of all the people who spend so much money on condos nearby. It's going to go down if we have a memorial here. So they said, we'll give you a memorial. So the family said, okay, then can you give it to us at this park?

1:10:22That's a very famous park that people love to go to. And it's a beautiful park. We can go there and spend time with our loved ones. But that park is so pretty. People will be so depressed if they go there and they see 500 something names. What about in the woods? they literally gave them a memorial in the middle of nowhere like just in the mountains and they built a luxury apartment building where that yeah the sample department store yeah one of the victims families was interviewed and the mom said it's money money money building costs this money cleanup costs that money compensation costs money let's give money to the victims everything is about money and nothing is about my child.

1:11:09Remember Mr. Zhang, speaking of money? He lost three daughters in the collapse and his eldest daughter was the blind professor at Seol Dae. He was compensated over$600 ,000 for the loss of all of his children, which is nothing. And he gave it all to the Seoul National School for the Blind. Over the course of his life, he would donate more than 1.3 million dollars to churches schools and charities that his daughter liked and he would say money to me is nothing that I can have my daughters all had dreams to make the world a better place and I just have to fulfill those dreams before I go and Gia the one that survived 13 days she said I just hope people can learn from this that no one should ever have a, eh, it won't happen to me, it doesn't concern me attitude.

1:12:03Because tragedy doesn't really pick people to happen to. It can happen to anyone. It can happen to your child that waved goodbye to you before school, or the husband that promised to be home for dinner. I never thought something like this would happen to me, but it did. And that is the story of this Hanfung department store collapse honestly what what are your thoughts please leave it in the comments and yeah it's crazy but please stay safe and i will see you guys on wednesday for the main episode bye