[Anchor]
Last month, a subcontractor in his 50s died after being buried under a pile of soil at a construction site in Ulsan. Despite the site being part of a petrochemical complex project involving a massive budget of 9 trillion won, there was not even a single shoring structure in place to prevent such an accident.
Reporter Kwon Min-kyu has this exclusive report.
[Reporter]
Workers in fluorescent vests move urgently, some frantically digging away the soil with their hands and shovels.
This was the immediate aftermath of an accident last June at the S-Oil petrochemical complex construction site in Onsan-eup, Ulsan, where a subcontractor worker in his 50s, surnamed Jung, was buried under a collapse of earth.
Soil loosened by rain that fell until early that morning gave way, engulfing Jung as he was conducting excavation work on a slope beneath a temporary bridge.
[Accident Witness: About seven or eight people came to clear it, but it wouldn't budge. It was too heavy. In the end, they had to dig into the ground to pull him out....]
Jung was rushed to the hospital in cardiac arrest and ultimately passed away.
However, video footage secured by SBS right after the accident shows no shoring facilities to hold back the cascading soil.
According to the Occupational Safety and Health Standards Act, excavation work requires securing an appropriate slope angle or installing shoring structures in areas where risks are anticipated.
Yet, no shoring facilities were present, and it was found that the accident site was a steep incline exceeding safety standards for gradient.
The site of the accident is the Shaheen Project, which the government touted three years ago as a major achievement of economic diplomacy with Saudi Arabia.
The Shaheen Project poured a staggering 9.3 trillion won into an 880,000-square-meter site, but failed to guarantee the safety of workers on the ground.
Industrial accidents at the Shaheen Project site reached 53 cases in 2024 when construction fully got underway, 170 cases last year, and 127 cases in the first half of this year alone, including two fatalities.
[Accident Witness: Small accidents gradually lead to bigger ones, and this feels like an accident that was waiting to happen. There is no such thing as an unavoidable accident.]
[Rep. Kim So-hee / People Power Party (National Assembly Environment and Labor Committee): As the Serious Accidents Punishment Act focuses too heavily on strengthening punishment, we need a shift toward providing incentives for companies to bolster investments in safety.]
When asked for its stance, S-Oil declined to issue a separate statement, while the main contractor, Hyundai Engineering & Construction, stated that it is cooperating with police and Ministry of Employment and Labor investigations and will devise countermeasures to prevent similar accidents from recurring.
(Photo: Yonhap News)
Reported by Kwon Min-kyu | Video by Kim Young-hwan | Video Editing by So Ji-hye | Graphics by Cho Su-in
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