North Korea’s Fake Town
In the most militarized place in the world, the North and South Korean border, there lies a town. North Koreans call the place Kijong-dong, or Peace Village. From afar, Peace Village looks like a normal place. However, if one were to look closely, one will notice the entire village is absolutely devoid of people. The buildings are completely empty. Why was this built? The answer is propaganda.
North Korea created a fake village in an attempt to convince South Koreans to defect. Nearly everything in the town is designed for appearance as part of an ideological war. When South Korea built a 321 foot tall flag pole on its side on the border, North Korea built a 525 foot tall flag pole to one-up its rival. Initially, loudspeakers blasted propaganda praising North Korea’s quality of life in hopes of convincing defection. After 2004, the loudspeakers broadcasted Anti-Western propaganda. Despite the unlikelihood of defection due to South Korea’s thriving economy, this town is still attempting to keep up its appearances.
Ryan, R. (2014, July 11). The mysterious fake town on North Korea’s border. New York Post. Retrieved from https://nypost.com/2014/07/11/the-mysterious-fake-town-on-north-koreas-border/.
Hotel Collapse in Singapore
Singapore, a fast-growing country of wealth and influence. In the suburbs of the city lies a hotel called “New World,” in a neighbourhood called Little India. A six-story building that features a bank, night club and an inn.
March 14, 1986, started out like any other normal day. During the preparation for the nightclub events, a column began to crack. Few heed any attention other than a few workmen. On the next day, another column began to crack and debris started to fall from the roof of the basement.
Just before noon, the building started to shake. In just one minute, the building collapsed. Thousands of tons of concrete came raining down above. Dozens of people are trapped under mounds of rubble. Throughout the day, emergency services desperately searched for survivors. The horrifying reality though was that 20 or so people were on the ground floor bank when the building collapsed.
During the night, slabs of concrete were being slowly removed. However, the use of heavy machinery was causing the rubble to shift, which would endanger any survivors buried underneath. Subway engineers proposed a new idea of tunnelling to the survivors. Risking their lives, engineers bravely constructed a temporary tunnel knowing that rubble could collapse above with their movements. Their efforts were in vain: the tunnel later collapsed. Undeterred, the engineers began digging more tunnels. After 2 days since the collapse, engineers were able to find more survivors.
In the end, 17 people were rescued, while 33 were killed.
Investigators immediately began to look into what caused this collapse. A bomb was quickly ruled out since the building collapsed nearly straight downwards, whilst explosions blow debris outward.
Maybe it was defects in the building materials? Concrete taken from the rubble were put under-strength tests. The results: no defects in the material.
Maybe it was the ground the hotel was built on? After all, like much of Singapore, the area was once a swamp that was drained, later on, making the soil unstable. After investigating the soil around the foundations, the results, again, proved no defects. The soil was not to blame.
At this point, the investigators grew increasingly frustrated. Fortunately, a possible lead came to light. As mentioned, the night before the collapse, a column cracked. More interviews were conducted, and it was revealed that a second column nearby also cracked. Then on the morning of the collapse, witnesses said a third column cracked.
But what could have caused these columns to collapse? Over the course of the hotel’s existence, the building owner added a variety of heavy loads. However, even with all the extra weight, the blueprints showed the columns should have been able to support the hotel.
Eventually, a breakthrough! It was found that errors were made in the blueprint. The columns used would not have been able to support the weight. Over time, the columns became more and more strained until they could hold no more.
Koh, M. (2016, November 28). Hotel New World: ‘I always imagined he would come out’. The New Paper. Retrieved from https://www.tnp.sg/news/singapore/hotel-new-world-i-always-imagined-he-would-come-out.