The 1988 Yellowstone Fires
The fire that sprouted up back in 1988 was probably the biggest in the entire history of Yellowstone National Park. At first, there were only a couple of small, individual fires. However, they managed to rapidly combine into a huge wildfire that burned for months in a row.
It had to be closed for the first time in the park’s history. Authorities didn’t succeed in stopping the fire too soon. In fact, it was so powerful that the park kept on burning until it finally started to rain. You can only imagine that by the time it fully stopped, 793,880 acres had already been burned, and two civilians had tragically died. The incident proved extremely expensive, as it cost more than $267 million.
The Collapse of the Sampoong Department Store
In 1987, the Sampoong Group decided to build their own self-titled department store. The thing is, they built it over a landfill. At the time, the head of the construction division was Leee Joon, and he was the one who decided to change the design and cut more support columns to fit more escalators.
Even if Woosung Construction, the firm group that was technically in charge of the building, didn’t go with any of the changes Joon suggested, he decided to fire them and continue anyway. Soon enough, Joon’s ignorance and ignoring the cracks and warning signs right before the events cost him a lot of human lives. The building tragically collapsed in 1995, and the casualties were too bad even to mention. On top of that, the event flushed no less than $364 million down the drain.
