Three people were killed and three were injured in the collapse at the Seosomun overpass demolition site in Seodaemun District, Seoul.
As of 4:40 p.m. on the 26th, fire authorities assessed the casualties as follows. Two men in their 60s and one man in his 50s died. In addition, one man in his 50s, one man in his 40s, and one man in his 30s were injured and taken to a hospital.
All of the dead and injured were related to the construction. The two men in their 60s who died were the supervising director and the site management head, and the man in his 50s was confirmed as an outside safety inspection expert.
According to the Seoul Metropolitan Government, at about 2:30 a.m. that day, a 2.9-centimeter level difference occurred during slab cutting at the demolition site, and the work was halted. Starting around 2 p.m., city officials and employees of a safety inspection firm began a check and then experienced the accident.
Lee Jong-mun, head of disaster management at the Seodaemun Fire Station, said, "Based on checks including nearby closed-circuit (CC)TV, there were 13 people near the accident site, and excluding the six dead and injured, seven, including pedestrians, were identified as survivors."
The fire authorities were dispatched after receiving a report around 2:33 p.m. that a structure had collapsed and have carried out rescue operations since about 2:37 p.m.
With the rescue and search operations concluded, restoration work is set to continue. Restoration is said to take about a day. A Seoul city official said, "We will proceed swiftly with restoration after consultations with the Korea Rail Network Authority."
The Seosomun overpass was completed in 1966. After receiving a "D grade" in a detailed safety inspection, demolition work had been underway since September last year. The demolition was 89% complete and was scheduled to finish next month.