Of 14 hotels that had already been built under false pretenses when the problem first came to light , two of them were shown to fail Japan 's earthquake resistance standards . Because the concrete had insufficient reinforcing steel , there was a fear that an earthquake of magnitude 5 on the Japanese Shindo scale could cause the buildings to collapse . None of the buildings in question have yet collapsed , but the safety of high-rise buildings in earthquake-prone Japan has been called into question , particularly in the light of the 1995 Sampoong Department Store collapse in Korea
Sampoong Department Store collapse
Sampoong Department Store collapse
Architectural forgery in Japan