[Asia Economy Reporter Onyu Lim] The Seoul Metropolitan Government announced on the 7th that it will implement 10 major measures to strengthen safety management at small and medium-sized private construction sites, focusing on the installation of CCTV.
The city decided to mandate the installation of CCTV at excavation sites deeper than 10 meters (equivalent to basement level 2) and demolition sites.
The obligation to establish a small-scale safety management plan will apply to all construction sites exceeding a total floor area of 200㎡, and a new procedure will be introduced to verify whether guidance on preventing industrial accidents in construction work has been received from experts.
For hazardous tasks such as demolition and excavation, prior approval will be required to strengthen the management and supervision functions of supervisors.
To prevent accidents involving temporary structures with high risk at small and medium-sized construction sites, safety inspection checklists for temporary structures and scaffolding installation guides will be distributed to district offices.
Other measures include mandatory safety education for constructors, supervisors, and building owners, expansion of intensive safety inspection targets, distribution of manuals for each construction process, establishment of an informatization system with CCTV monitoring functions, and enhancement of related public officials' capabilities.
Safety management of private construction sites has been primarily designed for large sites over 10,000㎡, leading to ongoing criticism that small and medium-sized sites are neglected blind spots.
In fact, 77% of private construction site safety accidents in the past three years, including the collapse of Sangdo Kindergarten in September 2018 and the collapse of a demolition site in Jamwon-dong in July 2019, occurred at small and medium-sized construction sites.
Kim Seong-bo, head of the Housing and Architecture Headquarters of Seoul City, said, "We will operate meticulous measures equivalent to those for large construction sites to prevent any more tragic safety accidents."
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