A STUDENT was pulled alive and well from the rubble of a collapsed Seoul department store yesterday after surviving for 10 days on rainwater and cardboard.
'I slept a lot,' said Choi Myong-sok, 21, who worked in the Sampoong department store as a part-time salesman. 'There was a bit of space in there.' Mr Choi, bare-chested and his head wrapped in a towel to shield his eyes from light, was pulled to the surface after two hours of digging to the applause of rescuers and the tears of relatives who had given up hope.
After medical checks at nearby St Mary's Hospital, doctors pronounced him relatively fit.
'At one point, I lost all hope and gave up,' said Mr Choi, who was surprised to find out he had been lost for 10 days. 'I thought five days might have passed at best.' Mr Choi worked in a shoe store on the third floor of the five-storey building. At the time of the collapse, he had been about to leave a basement supermarket with an ice cream.
'I felt the building shaking. I tried to flee, but it tumbled down too quickly.' Two women survivors were nearby, he said, but both drowned in water sprayed by firemen.
The same water and torrential rain seeping through the debris during his last 48 hours in the rubble helped him cling to life. He also chewed on a paper carton.
He said the most difficult moment was when one of the two women told him she was dying.