Disaster Class: Two Deadly Man-Made Disasters

There’s a saying that goes, “All regulations are written in blood.” And it’s true. If given the opportunity, companies will cut corners and find loopholes to make their jobs easier or cheaper or skirt some kind of oversight. And when it all goes wrong, when there’s blood on their hands, when there’s a dozen microphones in their face, the people in charge always look contrite. And that’s infuriating, isn’t it? The mundanity of that kind of evil. They wanted to save a couple of bucks and now people are dead and hurt and they’re sorry. Today, we’re talking about two cases where hundreds of people lost their lives because some bigwig at the top didn’t like the idea of spending a little more money. These stories will make your blood boil!

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Sources: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErzjQIGit_0 https://bostonfirehistory.org/the-story-of-the-cocoanut-grove-fire/ http://ampoleagle.com/polish-kid-endures-years-of-fire-falsities-p16302-152.htm https://mgriblog.org/2022/11/28/how-the-cocoanut-grove-fire-changed-burn-care-at-mass-general-and-beyond/ https://www.deseret.com/utah/2024/11/28/deseret-news-archives-coconut-grove-nightclub-fire-resulted-in-492-deaths/ https://insights.taylorduma.com/post/102k197/how-bostons-coconut-grove-fire-changed-the-law#:~:text=On%20that%20night%20492%20lives,broken%20bones%20to%20pulmonary%20edema. https://www.jlconline.com/projects/remodeling-historic-preservation/the-cocoanut-grove-fire-lessons-learned_o https://storyfunding.kakao.com/episode/611 https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22079499/ https://www.engr.psu.edu/ae/thesis/failures/MKP/failures/failures.wikispaces.com/Sampoong_Department_Store.html http://koreaherald.com/article/3188019 https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/may/27/seoul-sampoong-department-store-disaster-history-cities-50-buildings Collapse: When Buildings Fall Down by Phillip Wearne https://www.britannica.com/event/Sampoong-Department-Store-collapse https://sandyriverreview.com/2025/04/11/the-sampoong-mall-collapse-how-greed-led-to-south-koreas-largest-peacetime-disaster/ Disastrous History on TikTok https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/2003/10/06/economy/Lee-Joon-81-convicted-in-Sampoong-deaths/2040664.html

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