Missing Person Found Dead at Gwangmyeong Collapse Site... Recovered 125 Hours After Accident (Comprehensive)

Found Near Container at 21 Meters Underground, Buried in Soil and Debris
Fire Authorities After Six Days of Search: "We Apologize to the Family Who Waited Anxiously"

One worker who had been missing at the underground tunnel construction site of the Sinansan Line in Gwangmyeong-si, Gyeonggi Province, where a collapse accident occurred, was found dead.

Yonhap News

According to the Fire Agency on the 16th, the 50-year-old worker A, belonging to POSCO E&C, who had been missing due to this accident, was found that day in the afternoon.

Rescue workers recovered A, who was deceased, at 8:11 p.m., and after about 125 hours since the accident occurred, he was transported to Chung-Ang University Gwangmyeong Hospital.

Earlier, the fire authorities confirmed part of A’s body with an endoscopic camera around 6:30 p.m. Then, at about 8:03 p.m., they confirmed A’s entire body at a depth of 21 meters underground.

Due to the harsh conditions at the collapse site, it took considerable time to move A outside the site and check his condition.

Hong Geon-pyo, Fire Prevention Director of Gwangmyeong Fire Station, said, "On the sixth day, we used excavators and cranes to remove debris and searched up to the container area of the education building, where the missing person was presumed to be." He added, "We recovered the missing person and transported him to the hospital, and we apologize for not being able to deliver the rescue news to the family who had been anxiously waiting."

He continued, "According to the rescue workers, the recovered missing person was in a state with a lot of soil and debris," and added, "He was found not far from the container where he was last seen, and the container was not intact."

The fire authorities confirmed immediately after the collapse accident that A and a 20-year-old excavator operator B were trapped at the site and continued rescue and search operations. B was safely rescued by the fire authorities on the morning of the 12th, about 13 hours after the accident occurred.

B was able to communicate by phone from the early stage of being trapped, but in A’s case, the mobile phone power repeatedly turned on and off right after the accident, and about an hour after the accident, the power was completely off, making location tracking impossible. Subsequently, search operations were temporarily suspended and resumed several times due to worsening weather and ground weakening.

With A being found on this day, the search for missing persons is expected to conclude, and future efforts will focus on site recovery at the collapse point. This accident occurred at 3:13 p.m. on the 11th at the underground tunnel construction site of Section 5-2 of the Sinansan Line double-track railway in Iljik-dong, Gwangmyeong-si, where POSCO E&C was constructing, when the site and the road above collapsed.