Three people were killed and three were injured in a collapse at the demolition site of the Seosomun overpass in Seodaemun District, Seoul.
Fire authorities said as of 4:40 p.m. on the 26th they 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 hospitals.
All the dead and injured were related to the project. The two men in their 60s who died were the head of supervision and the site management chief, and the man in his 50s was confirmed as an external 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., Seoul city officials and employees of a safety inspection firm went in to check and then experienced the accident.
Lee Jong-mun, head of disaster management at the Seodaemun Fire Station, said, "As confirmed by nearby closed-circuit (CC)TV and other sources, there were 13 people near the accident, and excluding the six dead and injured, seven, including pedestrians, were identified as survivors."
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 rescue and search operations wrapped up, restoration work is expected to continue. The restoration is said to take about a day. A Seoul city official said, "We will proceed swiftly with the restoration work after consulting 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 be finished next month.