page_title: Sampoong Department Store collapse
section_title: Rescue and recovery
hierarchical_section_title: Sampoong Department Store collapse / Rescue and recovery
caption_attribution_description: 한국어: 삼풍백화점 붕괴사고(三豊百貨店 崩壞 事故, 영어 English: Sampoong Department Store Collapse
context_page_description: The Sampoong Department Store collapse was a structural failure that occurred on June 29, 1995, in the Seocho-gu district of Seoul, South Korea. The collapse is the largest peacetime disaster in South Korean history, killing 502 people and injuring 937. It was the deadliest modern building collapse until the September 11 attacks in New York City, and the deadliest non-deliberate building collapse until the 2013 Savar building collapse near Dhaka, Bangladesh.
context_section_description: Rescue crews were on the scene within minutes of the disaster, with cranes and other heavy equipment being brought in the next day. However, Seoul's then mayor, Choi Byung Yol, announced the rescue would be called off, due to fears the unstable remains of the store would collapse. Massive protests, especially from friends and relatives of those still missing, compelled officials to continue looking for survivors, with the remains of the store being steadied by guy cables. At one point, Korea Telecom was transmitting a signal, every half hour, designed to trigger cellphones or pagers that trapped survivors might be carrying.
  After nearly a week, the focus was on removing the debris, but construction crews were careful to check for victims.
  Two days after the collapse, some officials said that anybody who was still in the building must have already died; therefore, further efforts would be made only towards "recovery", not "rescue" despite the possibility of victims being able to survive for much longer. Despite the sweltering heat, some who were not rescued in the first few days avoided dehydration by drinking rainwater. The last to be rescued, 19-year-old Park Seung-hyun (Korean: 박승현, Hanja: 朴昇賢), was pulled from the wreckage 17 days after the collapse with a few scratches. 18-year-old Yoo Ji-hwan was pulled out after nearly 12 days. A man rescued after 9 days reported that other trapped survivors had drowned from the rain and from the water used for fire suppression.
caption: President Kim Young-sam visits the site of the collapse
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