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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