100kg Iron Lump Falling from the Sky Startles Commuters on Their Way to Work

Crane Connector Falls in Gwangju

During rush hour, a 100kg metal chunk fell at a city bus stop on a road in Gwangju, injuring four citizens.

According to Yonhap News on the 13th, around 8:45 a.m. that day, a loud noise was heard on a road in front of a bus stop in Bangnim-dong, Nam-gu, Gwangju, as a hook-shaped metal chunk about 50cm in size plummeted down.

The metal chunk fell onto the road right in front of the bus stop, leaving a 5cm deep hole in the middle of the roadway. The road surface, unable to withstand the 100kg weight, was filled with a cloud of pale dust. At the time, a school bus carrying children and passenger cars were moving slowly on the road, and some passenger cars that encountered the vertically falling metal chunk right in front of their engine compartments stopped in the middle of the road.

Citizens who witnessed the situation checked around to see if anyone was injured and called the fire department on their mobile phones. A man in his 50s who witnessed the accident told Yonhap News, "Something fell from the sky and there was a 'bang' sound," adding, "It happened so quickly that I didn’t even know what was going on and just wanted to get away from the scene."

It was confirmed that about five or six citizens were waiting for the bus to go to work at the bus stop at the time. Among them, a woman in her 50s, Ms. A, was hit on the shoulder by flying road debris and was transported to the hospital. Three other citizens who showed symptoms of hyperventilation were also taken to the hospital by the fire department. All of them received basic treatment and were found to have no life-threatening injuries.

The local government of Nam-gu and the fire department immediately conducted an on-site investigation. The investigation revealed that the metal chunk had fallen from a crane installed at a nearby construction site. At the construction site that day, workers were dismantling the crane, and it is believed that the connecting link hanging from the crane, about 50 meters high, had deteriorated and fallen.

A Nam-gu official told Yonhap News, "It appears the accident occurred while lowering the crane with the connected link to the ground," adding, "We will thoroughly inspect to ensure that such an incident does not happen again."