Talk:Seongsu Bridge disaster

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Cielquiparle (talk) 23:49, 8 March 2023 (UTC)

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• Article history

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Seongsu Bridge collapse

• ... that after the Seongsu Bridge collapsed (pictured) in Seoul, radiographic testing found that 110 of the 111 connections in the bridge were filled with defects? Source: "The direct cause of the collapse was poor welding of vertical members, which were the core elements to connect suspension truss to anchor truss. After radiographic investigation tests, among 111 connections of the bridge, 110 were identified with defects. Compared to the 18 mm thickness of vertical member, the actual depth of penetration was only 8 mm, and the available depth of penetration of some was merely 2 mm." (174, Kim Yong-kyun, Disaster Risk Management in the Republic of Korea (2017), https://archive.org/details/disasterriskmana0000kimy/page/174/)
  • ALT1: ... that the Sampoong Department Store collapsed 9 months after President Kim Young-sam promised to minimize all construction risks in response to the Seongsu Bridge disaster (pictured) in Seoul? Source: "The next day, on October 24, the president made a special public statement through a national telecast. The statement contained several important issues...the government would like to promise to take all kinds of measures to minimize all risks existing in Korea...In spite of efforts to prevent large-scale accidents through activities at the National Assembly and the government, after the collapse of Seongsu bridge, another large-scale disaster occurred when the Sampoong Department Store collapsed on June 29, 1995." (157-8, Kim Yong-kyun, Disaster Risk Management in the Republic of Korea (2017), https://archive.org/details/disasterriskmana0000kimy/page/174/)
  • ALT2: ... that repairs for the Seongsu Bridge in Seoul were scheduled the day before the Seongsu Bridge collapsed (pictured), but were postponed due to bad weather? Source: "City officials said repairs on the bridge had been scheduled for Thursday evening but were postponed because of bad weather. The central span was not due for repair, however, they said." https://www.nytimes.com/1994/10/22/world/32-reported-dead-as-bridge-collapses-in-seoul.html
  • ALT3: ... that the Seoul Metropolitan Government planned to reopen the Seongsu Bridge to traffic 3 months after it collapsed (pictured), but stopped after public outcry? Source: "After the accident was taken care of, Seoul City announced to reopen traffic after three months by repairing the intact parts but citizens were against the idea. Therefore, the policy was retracted and it was decided to newly construct the bridge." (157-8, Kim Yong-kyun, Disaster Risk Management in the Republic of Korea (2017), https://archive.org/details/disasterriskmana0000kimy/page/174/)
  • Reviewed:

Created by Freedom4U (talk). Self-nominated at 05:54, 20 February 2023 (UTC). Post-promotion hook changes for this nom will be logged at Template talk:Did you know nominations/Seongsu Bridge Disaster; consider watching this nomination, if it is successful, until the hook appears on the Main Page.

General: Article is new enough and long enough
New enough: Long enough:

Policy: Article is sourced, neutral, and free of copyright problems
Adequate sourcing: Neutral: Free of copyright violations, plagiarism, and close paraphrasing:

Hook: Hook has been verified by provided inline citation
Cited: Interesting:

Image: Image is freely licensed, used in the article, and clear at 100px.
Freely licensed: Used in article: Clear at 100px:

QPQ: Done.

Overall: @Freedom4U: Good article. AGF on Korean sources. Onegreatjoke (talk) 20:43, 20 February 2023 (UTC)

• @Onegreatjoke: Thank you! Freedom4U (talk) 21:31, 20 February 2023 (UTC)

GA Review

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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This review is transcluded from Talk:Seongsu Bridge disaster/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Sammi Brie (talk · contribs) 03:31, 12 March 2023 (UTC)

GA review (see here for what the criteria are, and here for what they are not)

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I found myself reading this article when it appeared in the DYK queue. I had no idea about Korea's reputation for construction disasters in the '90s, and it's quite a fascinating topic. I don't speak or read Korean, so anything involving reference checks requires me to use a translator.

• @Sammi Brie: Thank you for the praise, and I agree about the topic being fascinating. I've gone through your comments and responded to mostly everything except for the jesa ceremonies which I'll get to in a second. In addition, I have another concern about one of your comments in the Background section as well as regarding captions for the Gallery. Thank you for the review! :3 F4U (talk) 08:47, 12 March 2023 (UTC)

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a. (prose, spelling, and grammar):

   Some fairly minor changes.

   b. (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

   a. (reference section):

   b. (citations to reliable sources):

   UPSD flags some YouTube videos from reliable publishers.

   c. (OR):

   There is good reference density. Just one bullet in the popular culture section needs a reference. I have a question about one spot check that is probably something a native speaker can answer easily.

   d. (copyvio and plagiarism):

   Earwig is mostly catching banal phrases and some of the lengthy proper nouns like "Korean Society of Civil Engineers". One suggested change.

3. It is broad in its coverage.

   a. (major aspects):

   b. (focused):

   Are enshrinements undue detail?

4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.

   Fair representation without bias:

5. It is stable.

   No edit wars, etc.:

6. It is illustrated by images and other media, where possible and appropriate.

   a. (images are tagged and non-free content have non-free use rationales):

   The images all seem fine. Want to make sure of what the watermark on one of the gallery images is.

   b. (appropriate use with suitable captions):

   Captions on gallery images would be helpful. I see you have alt text (great bonus), and it's some of the most detailed alt text I've seen on the encyclopedia.

7. Overall:

   Pass/fail:

   7-day hold to Freedom4U. A fantastic addition to the encyclopedia, and after seeing GAN reviews one or two times your work will be even better. There are a fair amount of mostly minor changes. Sammi Brie (she/her • t • c) 03:31, 12 March 2023 (UTC)

(Criteria marked are unassessed)

Copy changes

Background

• Upon completion, the Seongsu Bridge became the 11th bridge constructed over the Han River, and were part of a series of public works projects by then military dictator Park Chung-Hee. I don't love this sentence. The "series of public works projects" seems to go better with the "increased demand" thought in the preceding sentence. Also, even if this were a better sentence, it contains a User:Sammi Brie/Commas in sentences (CinS) problem (the last comma should be removed).
  • Not done for now Hmm, I don't want the article to necessarily suggest that the bridge was responding to increased demand, because if anything, the bridge's existence is what created that demand. The Gangnam area (south of the river) was very underdeveloped, but Park Chung-hee wanted to expand the city there, so he built the infrastructure, and then the people came. Fixed the comma issue though, I feel like I've read that guide ten times and I still have trouble remembering what's right and wrong.
    • @Freedom4U: In context, the increased demand was for construction services, not traffic, in that particular passage. So it does fit. Let me know about the enshrinements. Sammi Brie (she/her • t • c) 04:46, 13 March 2023 (UTC)

  @Sammi Brie Ah I'm sorry, I missed that when I was reading your statement. I've rephrased the section and I've delegated the victim information to the footnotes section. Cheers! :3 F4U (talk) 16:55, 13 March 2023 (UTC)

• to the South There's no need to capitalize cardinal directions; this also occurs in "to the North" later.
  •  Done

Collapse

• Repairs for the bridge had been scheduled for that day, but were postponed due to bad weather. Another CinS. Remove this comma...
  •  Done
• Traffic was flowing at a speed of 40 km/h (25 mph) and a total of 6 vehicles were involved in the incident ... but add one after (25 mph). You need a comma because this sentence has two subjects *and* two verbs.
  •  Done
• 9 students ... 6 hospitals MOS:NUMERAL: these should be spelled out. there are also some in the sentences section later (6 months, 3 years) to fix.
  •  Done
• Is the information about enshrinement at hospitals worthy to be included here? It's kind of a slog, and as a non-Korean reader, I wonder why this paragraph is there. Is this maybe better presented as a footnote? Feel free to challenge me.
  • I'll get back to you on that
• First responders arrived more than 20 minutes after the collapse and rescue operations began at 8:10 a.m. Comma after "collapse" needed (CinS)
  •  Done

Investigation

• Maintenance of the bridge was neglected due to limited fiscal resources and connecting pins used in the bridge had become heavily rusted. CinS — add a comma after "resources"
  •  Done
• The 17 defendants were tried collectively at the 7th Seoul Criminal District Court under Judge Kim Dong-hwan (김동환) and proceedings began on December 15, 1994. CinS — add a comma after the parenthetical
  •  Done
• Former director of the Dongbu Construction office in Seoul, Yeo Yong-won (여용원; 呂勇元) ... Reorder to make a complete appositive. Yeo Yong-won (여용원; 呂勇元), the former director of the Dongbu Construction office in Seoul, ...
  •  Semi-done Should this be done for all other instances where someone's title comes before their name, or only in instances where doing so creates a comma? I've done it in the selected instance for now.
    • I think it only needed to be done here.
• In South Korea, the Supreme Court can only consider appeals with regards to the law, and cannot alter sentencing. Remove the second comma (CinS)
  •  Done

Aftermath

• He would be replaced by Governor of North Gyeongsang Province Woo Myoung-kyu on October 31, before Remove comma
  •  Done
• when questions had been raised about the safety of the bridge Reword to break up this verbatim passage from the New York Times article.
  •  Done and replaced the NYTimes citation with a more comprehensive Korean-language source
• In addition, the Cabinet paid for the medical expenses of the injured, and compensated them in consultation with their families Remove comma
  •  Done
• Starting on April 26, 1995, the remainder of the bridge was dismantled and construction for the new bridge began in March of 1996 Add a comma after "dismantled" and change "March of 1996" to "March 1996"
  •  Done
• The new bridge was opened to the public on July 3, 1997, by Mayor Cho Soon and a memorial was held on the bridge. Add comma after Soon
  •  Done

In popular culture

• I believe the four items included feature the bridge collapse prominently enough to be included.
• But I want to see a reference for The rock band N.EX.T.'s third album, The Return of N.EX.T Part 2: World [ko] mentions the Seongsu Bridge collapse in its criticism of South Korea's development
  •  Done Citation added

Spot checks

6 of the 65 references were selected at random for spot checks.

• 15: This is a video, so I can't do this one. I instead decided to check reference 14. Where is the rapid growth item here... Is it the passage that translates We thought that the forest of apartments in Apgujeong-dong across the bridge could be seen as a cross-section of the rapid growth of Korean society. ?
  • The video is specifically for the figure cited (160k vehicles) -- timestamp where its mentioned is 4:36. As for 14, it states "애초 부실공사에 보수 관리가 소홀했던 데다 강남 개발 이후 강‧남북을 오가는 차량이 기하급수적으로 증가하면서 이 하중을 견디지 못해 무너졌다." which roughly translates to "Firstly, as a result of rushed construction, maintenance was neglected, but in addition, following the development of Gangnam, the number of vehicles going to/from Gangnam/Gangbuk increased exponentially, and the bridge, which could not withstand that load, collapsed."
    • This is fine. Y
• 16: KBS News transcript mentions connection to Olympic Boulevard and repair work 50m away. Y
• 27: Reuters item in the New York Times: Investigators said today that they believed that the collapse occurred because rusted expansion hinges broke under heavy loads. Y
• 29: Another transcript: The Seongsu Bridge has a limit load of only 32.4 tons, but dozens of these overloaded vehicles pass through every day. Y
• 40: MBC News transcript mentions detention of two executives. Presumably this combines with [39] also cited there. Y
• 65: Mentions info about the plot of the film and the role the bridge collapse plays. (14 is mostly about this, and it works for that as well.) Y

Images

The article contains 10 images. Most of the contemporary images were taken or uploaded by User:Choikwangmo9 (former username Kwangmo), apparently with permission for use from the Seoul Metropolitan Fire Department. One of the gallery images has a watermark which I'd like to figure out what it is (could you tell me?). The images in the gallery could really use captions.

• The watermark is of the Seoul Metropolitan Fire Department (you can tell without understanding Korean, because of the emergency 119 number). It states "Seoul Special City Fire & Disaster Headquarters" (서울특별시 소방재난본부 or Seoul Metropolitan Fire and Disaster Management Headquarters). As for captions, I'm not quite certain what to caption them, which is why I haven't so far.
  • Ah, OK. They have great alt text—that could serve as a base.
    • I've added captions based on the alt text (I really can't figure out what's going on in picture three to be honest), if you'd like to take a look. :3 F4U (talk) 17:11, 13 March 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Date format

Korea (both North and South) uses dmy dates. So why does this article use mdy dates? Any issue with me fixing that? Schwede66 17:32, 14 March 2023 (UTC)

And may I point out that as per MOS:ORDER, the external links section is supposed to be the last one? Schwede66 17:54, 14 March 2023 (UTC)

@Schwede66 I've fixed your MOS:ORDER concern, but Korea uses the YMD, not DMY date format (because categories in the Korean language are ordered from largest to smallest). However, MOS:DATE states that there is no way to phrase the YMD date format for general use so I used the MDY date format that I'm familiar with. This is also consistent with Wikipedia policy (WP:DATEOVER) which states that the MOS guidelines on a particular date format when the article has strong national ties only applies to English-speaking countries. In addition, because of the YMD format used in Korea, to a Korean-speaker "October 24" reads much more naturally than "24 October". :3 F4U (they/it) 23:07, 14 March 2023 (UTC)

I see. No trouble. Schwede66 03:35, 15 March 2023 (UTC)