(Seoul = Yonhap News) Reporter Kim Jun-tae = It has been confirmed that there is an unauthorized structure on the downhill road where the Itaewon disaster occurred.
Some spaces at the Hamilton Hotel next to the downhill road were also found to have been illegally enlarged.
It is pointed out that this made the passage in the area more cramped, which served as one of the reasons for the crowd crowding.
According to the Yongsan District and the building register on the 1st, an old building in the middle of a downhill alleyway where a large-scale stampede disaster took place is an unauthorized building that does not exist in the building register.
Part of the structure of the building protrudes from the sidewalk, which made the road even narrower.
It is unclear when the building was built.
However, judging from the fact that it is classified as "subject to pending maintenance", it is assumed that it was built before 1981.
In order to manage unauthorized buildings that were in existence in the past, the Seoul Metropolitan Government classifies unauthorized buildings built before 1981 as "subject to pending maintenance" based on the Urban and Residential Environment Improvement Act.
Yongsan-gu explains that it does not take compulsory measures such as demolition, but only manages it according to the city's work manual.
A ward official said, "Since the area is the old city center, there are many unauthorized buildings built in the 1960s and 1970s."
In addition, the tavern on the north side of the Hamilton Hotel main building was found to be an unauthorized addition to the terrace (17.4㎡).
Yongsan-gu confirmed this fact last year and demanded corrective action from the hotel, and when it was not corrected, it imposed a mandatory performance fee and marked the main building of the Hamilton Hotel as a violating building.
The space occupied by the terrace of the tavern is in the direction of World Food Culture Street. It is the upper right corner of the 'T' shaped passage that leads downhill where the disaster took place.
At the time of the accident, the crowd on the World Food Culture Street was driven down a narrow downhill path past the point where the terrace used to be. This downhill alleyway is about 5 meters wide at the top, but narrows as you go down, shrinking to 3.2 meters.
https://www.yna.co.kr/view/AKR20221101037751004?
