At 2:30 p.m. on the 13th, Jeil Market in Bucheon, Gyeonggi Province. Display stands throughout the market's interior were smashed. At one clothing store, the window was shattered and clothes were strewn across the floor. The merchants who had managed to tidy up gathered to talk about what happened at the time of the crash.
At about 10:55 a.m. that day, a 1-ton (t) truck driven by a man in his 60s, identified as A, plowed in. The truck sped for 150 meters before it stopped. Two people were killed and 18 were injured in the crash. Nine of the injured were classified as emergency or urgent patients.
According to those who witnessed the scene, the truck reversed about 28 meters near the market entrance to enter the parking lot. They said A, a market merchant, usually parked there. But with many pedestrians around, A's vehicle, which had paused briefly, then quickly charged into the market walkway.
The market walkway was a path where cars did not normally travel. It was not wide, with a width of 3 to 4 meters. At the time of the crash, some people survived by hurling themselves toward the shops to narrowly avoid the truck. One merchant said, "I heard a sudden noise and stood up, and at that moment a car passed in front of me."
Jeil Market began in 1981 when merchants gradually gathered to do business and was approved as a traditional market in 2006. It is the largest in Ojeong District, Bucheon. Even on weekday afternoons, many people were out shopping.
The Bucheon Ojeong Police Station urgently arrested A on suspicion of involuntary manslaughter and injury under the Special Act on the Handling of Traffic Accidents. A was said to have claimed sudden unintended acceleration to police. However, after reviewing closed-circuit (CC) TV, police said the brake lights did not come on.
Police plan to request analyses from the National Forensic Service and the Korea Road Traffic Authority and to determine the exact cause of the crash based on analysis of the event data recorder (EDR).