Shaking shopping mall evacuated

[Guest]

Thousands of people evacuated from a high-rise office building after tremors were felt throughout the building for unknown reasons in Seoul on Tuesday.

According to the Gwangjin Fire Station, the 39-story Prime Center including TechnoMart, a major electronics retail outlet in Gwangjin-gu, shook violently for 10 minutes at around 10:10 a.m., prompting some 300 people to evacuate.

“The building shook up and down so hard it was nauseating. Just in case I and my coworkers evacuated the building,” said Lim Joon-hee, an employee on the 20th floor, as quoted in other news reports.

“The building shook up and down, which didn’t seem like an earthquake. Everyone felt it,” said another employee surnamed Park.

“If it’s not an earthquake, the only other reason why a building like that can shake is if there is a design flaw in the architecture,” said Kwun Joon-bum, a professor at the Architecture School of Sejong University.

Reportedly the tremors were only felt in the Prime Center, as one retail salesman in TechnoMart posted accounts on his blog saying he was unaware of any tremors, and that he was alarmed by people evacuating onto the streets.

http://www.koreaherald.com/national/...20110705000907

[Guest]

Re: Shaking shopping mall evacuated

Wow, that gives you warm fuzzy feelings about going back into the building to work each day if there is a design flaw.

I guess a design flaw happened to a different building back in 1995 according to the end of the article. Yikes!

The recent scare brought a public outcry for thorough inspection of the building to prevent incidents like the collapse of the upmarket Sampoong Department Store in Seoul due to careless construction, resulting in nearly 500 deaths in 1995.