The Ministry of Employment and Labor and police on the 27th were raiding the Incheon Environmental Corporation headquarters and other locations in connection with an accident in which a worker died while cleaning at a sewage treatment plant.
The Jungbu Regional Employment and Labor Office and the Incheon Metropolitan Police Agency said that in the morning they deployed about 30 labor inspectors and police officers and secured contract-related documents, prior accident history materials, and mobile phones from the headquarters of the original contractor and the subcontractor, among others.
The ministry said it plans to closely examine why fall protection measures were not properly in place even though it was fully foreseeable that there was a risk of falling into the reservoir during cleaning work.
Earlier, on the 30th of last month, at a sewage treatment plant in Seo District, Incheon, a worker in his 50s died after falling when a plywood cover on a reservoir broke during cleaning work. The sewage treatment plant is operated by Incheon Environmental Corporation. Incheon Environmental Corporation is also under investigation over an incident in July in which two people died in a manhole suffocation accident.
The ministry said that even if it is not a major fatal accident, it will actively use compulsory investigations such as search and seizure and arrests to quickly determine whether employers violated the law if basic safety rules were not observed or the same type of accident occurs repeatedly, adding that it will conduct investigations with an even stricter standard, especially for public institutions.