Missing rebars, was LH the problem? No cases of faulty construction in private apartments

Jack supports are installed for reinforcement work in the parking lot of the A6 block of Segyo 2 apartment building in Osan, Gyeonggi-do, on the morning of Aug. 1. Yonhap

On October 23, two more Korea Land and Housing Corporation (LH) apartments constructed with the flat plate systemwere found to be missing rebars. This brings the total number of LH-built apartments with missing rebars to 23, including the apartment that collapsed in Geomdan, Incheon. Meanwhile, a government investigation found that there were no missing rebars in apartments using the flat plate system built by private companies or by other local governments. The housing corporation’s lack of capability is likely to come under scrutiny.

LH conducted emergency safety inspections of nineteen complexes where private companies participated in construction and eleven local government-commissioned complexes, which had been left out in the inspection conducted on July 31,and announced on Monday that they found rebars missing in two of the complexes. The complexes with problems were Uiwang Chopyeong A3 (completed) and Hwaseong Bibong A3 (under construction), both of which were projects developed by LH.

Residents are scheduled to move into Uiwang Chopyeong A3 this month, but shear reinforcements were left out during construction in 46 of the 918 columns. At Hwaseong Bibong A3, which is under construction with the goal of opening to residents in June 2025, shear reinforcements in 28 of the 921 columns were omitted in structural calculations and drawings in the design stage. The missing rates were 5% and 3%, respectively.

This was not the first time that the problem of missing rebars was discovered in LH apartments. In April, following the collapse of an underground parking lot at the apartment in Geomdan, Incheon, LH inspected all 91 complexes with flat plate structures for about three months and found rebars missing in fifteen complexes. They continued to discover additional cases of missing rebars, bringing the total number of LH apartments without necessary rebars to 23, including those announced Monday.

In response to the safety controversy over the flat plate structure, the government has been conducting a full-scale inspection of 427 private apartments with the flat plate structure since August. However, the result of the inspection announced Monday stated that there were no complexes constructed by private companies with defective construction. According to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport, authorities confirmed missing rebars in one complex under construction, but the company immediately made improvements and corrected the problem. In the 288 complexes where construction was already completed, no rebars were missing.

Two of the complexes required inspections from inside the apartments to verify that they were constructed according to the blueprint, but this was never carried out due to objections from residents. The land ministry explained, “The design only requires rebars in the ceiling of some units on the top floor, so there is no problem with overall structural safety.” As for why authorities only found rebars missing in complexes developed by LH, the adoption of cheap conventional construction methods is considered to be the main reason.