Poor construction blamed for deadly gym collapse: police
2014/02/28 11:39
GYEONGJU, South Korea, Feb. 28 (Yonhap) -- Police on Friday blamed shoddy construction and poor materials for last week's deadly gymnasium collapse that killed 10 people, mostly college students, and injured 105 others.
The roof of the gymnasium at the Mauna Ocean Resort in Gyeongju, a historic tourist city 370 kilometers southeast of Seoul, caved in on Feb. 17 while some 560 incoming freshmen from the Busan University of Foreign Studies were holding a welcome party inside the building.
Announcing the interim results of their investigation into the tragedy, officers at the Gyeongju Police Station said that the collapse was the result of overall poor construction and lax management of the building.
"The gymnasium showed numerous problems in terms of design, construction, and supervision," Bae Bong-gil, a lead investigator into the case, told a press briefing. "Also, resort employees did not properly remove snow from the roof."
Initially, snow that had piled up on the roof was blamed for the collapse. Hit by severe winter storms, the Gyeongju area received more than 50 centimeters of snowfall around the time of the accident.
After holding a joint on-site inspection with structural engineers and studying an architectural blueprint of the building for the past two weeks, police said they also obtained evidence suggesting structural flaws.
Police said not enough bolts were used to hold together an auxiliary pillar and the roof, and that some materials of a main pillar did not meet government standards.
"We plan to seek criminal charges against those responsible for the safety inspection of the resort and building the gymnasium, as well as contractors of substandard materials," Bae said, without giving further details on the identity of those involved.
A police officer at the Gyeongju Police Station releases an interim investigative result into a gym collpase on Feb. 28, 2014 (Yonhap)
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