"Local Governments Required to Report Sinkhole Measures to Ministry of Land"…Representative Yoon Jonggun Proposes Amendment

Mandatory Fines for Failure to Implement Safety Measures After Reporting

As the rainy season approaches and concerns about ground subsidence (sinkholes) increase, a bill has been proposed that would require not only inspections but also verification of whether safety measures have been implemented afterward.

On June 24, Representative Yoon Jonggun of the Democratic Party of Korea, a member of the National Assembly's Land, Infrastructure and Transport Committee, announced that he had proposed a partial amendment to the Special Act on the Management of Underground Safety.

The amendment grants the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport the legal authority to order safety measures in areas at risk of ground subsidence, and requires mandatory notification to the Ministry regarding whether such measures have been implemented.

The large-scale ground subsidence site that occurred last March in Myeongil-dong, Gangdong-gu, Seoul. Photo by Dongju Yoon

Since 2015, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport has operated a ground exploration team at the Korea Infrastructure Safety and Technology Corporation to prevent underground safety accidents and has conducted inspections for local governments. However, the current system only allows the Ministry to request action from local governments regarding voids detected during inspections, making it difficult to verify whether follow-up measures have actually been carried out.

According to data submitted by the Korea Infrastructure Safety and Technology Corporation to Representative Yoon, of the 266 voids for which corrective action was requested from local governments last year, implementation was confirmed in only 132 cases. For about half of the cases, it was not even possible to determine whether the measures had been carried out.

To address these issues of effectiveness, the amendment introduces several measures: the establishment of separate categories for regular and detailed safety inspections; granting the Minister of Land, Infrastructure and Transport the authority to order safety measures in areas at risk of ground subsidence; making it mandatory to notify the Ministry of the results of such measures; and introducing a provision for imposing fines in cases of non-compliance.

Representative Yoon stated, "Only diagnosing a problem without taking action is like identifying an illness but not treating it. I hope this amendment will establish an institutional foundation for monitoring whether safety measures have actually been implemented in the future."