On April 29, just a few days before Labor Day, a conflagration happened at a construction site in Icheon. The site was soon engulfed in flames after an explosion, causing 48 casualties. President Moon Jae In expressed his regret about this accident on May 1, and the police launched an investigation to identify how the fire started and who should be held responsible for this tragedy. The cause of the catastrophe was not only the high inflammability of the construction materials, but also the structural flaws in the work of subcontractors and the lack of safety consciousness.
The fire was sparked at about 1:23 P.M. at the construction site of Han Express’s new warehouse located in Moga-myun in Icheon, Gyeonggi-do. Although the fire department arrived at the scene just 11 minutes after it began, the fire was not completely extinguished until about five hours later. A search for workers caught in the fire was subsequently conducted with the help of forklifts. Ultimately, it was revealed that the total number of casualties was 48, with 38 deaths and 10 injuries, all of them being construction workers and most of them day laborers hired by electricity, painting, and installation contractors. Reports stated that many of the discovered bodies were burned beyond recognition; while some of them were identified visually, others had to go through DNA recognition.
The large number of deaths means the Icheon Conflagration is one of the biggest conflagration disasters in the last few years; in fact, the incident is now recorded as having the second largest number of deaths caused by a conflagration in the past ten years. What is even more alarming is that the citizens of Icheon had a frighteningly similar traumatic experience just 12 years ago—in 2008, a conflagration resulting in 40 deaths had occurred at a refrigeration warehouse in Icheon. Various traits of the recent Icheon Conflagration have been compared to the 2008 fire, and the two have been deemed alike to the point where they are now called “twin incidents.” Despite the countless promises for change made in the aftermath of such tragedies, the resemblance between the two Icheon fires can only mean one thing: the issues that prompt workplace disasters and its consequent casualties are yet to be resolved.
Disaster Just Waiting to Happen
Since the devastating incident, numerous field investigations have been conducted by the police in cooperation with the National Forensic Service (NFS), Gyeonggi-do Fire Services, Korea Gas Safety Corporation (KGS), Korea Electrical Safety Corporation (KESCO), and the Korea Occupational Safety and Health Agency (KOSHA). Most recently, the fourth field investigation was conducted on May 12. These investigations were conducted to identify the origin and cause of the initial fire.
According to the fire department’s conflagration investigation report issued on May 12, oxygen and electrical welding machines were uncovered at the scene. Although the currently released results of the field investigations are not fully confirmed, the report states that the fire may have begun when sparks from the equipment lit up inflammable construction materials.
The warehouse’s second basement floor is presumed to be where the fire originated. At the time of the conflagration, two projects were being worked on simultaneously within the same perimeter—the installation of a cargo elevator which involved welding and, near it, a project involving the inflammable urethane foam. However, the fact that welding equipment was used beside flammable materials is a skin-deep explanation for the cause of the Icheon Conflagration. Quite a lot of substances in the world are flammable; hence, many of the materials used in construction are flammable. The issue with this specific conflagration was that the material being used near welding equipment was urethane foam, which has an unbelievably high degree of inflammability.
When urethane foam is diluted, it emits oil mist, the foggy form oil droplets take when they vaporize. Because oil mist is inflammable and difficult to contain due to its gaseous form, any operation involving urethane foam must take place in an area completely distanced from operations involving fire, and the said area must be ventilated properly. However, at the time of the conflagration, the welders working on the elevator installation and the urethane workers had essentially been working so close that a fire was just waiting to be started. Moreover, the high inflammability of urethane foam caused the fire to spread so rapidly that many workers failed to escape once the foam caught on fire. The reason behind their unintuitive close proximity and the use of dangerous material is another unavoidable matter when discussing the cause of the Icheon Conflagration.
While the direct cause of the fire was urethane foam and sparks, the individuals in charge of safety at the construction site may have indirectly caused the disaster by authorizing the hazardous placement of workers and being lenient with following safety precautions. Statements taken from workers who escaped the fires at Icheon included in Hankyoreh’s coverage of the incident reinforce this idea. According to the survivors, safety protocols such as safety training and making sure workers were aware of evacuation routes newly updated in April, 2019 were not carried out.
On top of safety regulations not being followed, there was a lack of supervision which would have ensured that construction contractors were abiding by the rules. The documents submitted by KOSHA affirm that the Icheon Conflagration’s construction site had been warned six times about the possibility of a conflagration since it broke ground in April, 2019. KOSHA even went so far as to rate the construction site as having the highest level of danger and gave a warning regarding the possibility of “fires caused by rogue sparks from welding” and “explosions from urethane foam operations.” However, these warnings seemed to have little to no force; once the managers of the construction site sent a photograph proving that they were indeed being cautious with ongoing operations, KOSHA allowed them to continue the construction. A Ministry of Employment and Labor (MOEL) employee apparently stated that “no matter was pressing enough to order the cessation of construction upon inspection.”
Besides such easily passable safety inspections, the required number of supervisors seems to be another questionable aspect. Legally, large construction sites are required to have an Occupational Safety Supervisor and a Fire Safety Supervisor; currently, however, one person can take on both roles, thereby requiring only one safety supervisor in total to be present. Because Occupational Safety Supervisors’ main task is to prevent falls and collapses, professionals maintain that the role of Fire Safety Supervisor must be assigned to a separate person in order to truly monitor situations that may be fire-hazardous. The lack of supervisors, therefore, contribute to decreasing safety and creating environments where tragedies like the Icheon Conflagration can occur.
Same Patterns of Recurrent Accidents
According to Professor Kong Ha-Sung (Fire and Disaster Protection Engineering, Woosuk State University), around 500 to 1,000 cases of industrial accidents with similar causes happen annually. For example, as mentioned above, the conflagration in Icheon in 2008 and 2020 share a lot in common. In terms of the 2008 conflagration, although the precise cause was not revealed, it is assumed that the oil mist emitted from urethane foam and a series of explosions triggered the rapid spread of flames. Back then, processes involving fire were also conducted without any precautions despite the fact that the building materials were highly inflammable. It is rather concerning that so much time has passed and yet an incident with the exact same cause has occurred.
Lack of safety consciousness resulted in similar accidents over and over. Professor Lee Young Ju (Fire and Disaster Protection Engineering, University of Seoul) explained that most accidents that occur on construction sites have the same patterns, and there are already accident prevention manuals to deal with them. The problem is that contracting companies often neglect these measures to reduce the processing hours and increase their profit margin. Professor Lee stressed, “Although we know the answer key to prevent these disasters, those involved in construction do not act in that way.”
Subcontracting companies often deliberately speed up the process to complete the construction in a short period of time. According to labor rights activists, a subcontractor of Kunwoo, the company at the center of the Icheon Conflagration, forced the laborers to conduct welding where urethane foam was used, without any safety devices. Most construction companies recognize this as unsafe; however, they usually push ahead because the punishment for this violation is weak.
President Moon announced that he is “regretful that similar accidents repeated,” right after the Icheon incident. He then called an emergency meeting and said that the Icheon conflagration happened because safety levels have not been improved and lessons have not been learnt from past accidents. The president promised that the relevant departments will draw all the available resources to save workers’ lives.
The bereaved families and the labor rights activists claim that the current punishment for violating this law is a mere slap on the wrist. Since most construction companies are not afraid of being punished, they often neglect the safety regulations, although severe industrial accidents frequently occurred in the past. There should be a structural reform to force the relevant companies and construction workers to follow the precautions to eradicate the repetition of the tragedy.
Disregard of Labor Rights Leads to Safety Negligence
The depth of the issue of safety brought up by the Icheon Conflagration goes deeper than is seen on the surface. The fundamental reason safety is not prioritized over cutting financial losses is that labor rights, which include workers’ rights to operate under conditions which protect them from work-related dangers, are disregarded most of the time. Again, the Icheon Conflagration seems to exemplify how most construction businesses view the significance of safety at construction sites.
According to an article by The Chosunilbo, the safety supervisor of Kunwoo reportedly exclaimed, “What kind of construction site keeps all the safety precautions? If I’m really honest, no construction site keeps all of them. It’s the way it works.” Kim Kwang-il, Chief of the Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH) at the Federation of Korean Trade Unions (FKTU), further elaborated on the subject of on-site atmosphere brought to light by the aforementioned statement. “There is no legal standard that regulates the construction period. Hence, contractors and ordering organizations are able to shorten construction periods as they wish to improve their rate of cost to sales. Such short construction periods are combined with early morning, night, and holiday shifts to create a reality in which industrial hazards are likely to happen.”
When construction companies cannot deliver a finished structure by the promised deadline, they are required to pay liquidated damages; a fee to the ordering organization — in this case Han Express — according to the number of delayed days. Because liquidated damages for construction are generally 0.3 percent per day, in the case of Han Express’s warehouse, Kunwoo would have lost 180 million won per day if their construction had been delayed, in addition to workers’ wages. On the other hand, when incidents like the Icheon Conflagration occur, the consequences for contractors and ordering agents are less dire; very few cases have involved imprisonment. Inclinations in legal precedents such as these tempt employers to chase their financial benefit and put aside workers’ safety.
“In the construction industry, numerous parties including the ordering organization contribute to each project. However, for some reason the principal agent behind the construction and danger are structurally able to avoid responsibility,” Kim adds. The Icheon Conflagration may simply have been the tip of the iceberg of the deep-rooted issue of lack of safety consciousness within the construction industry. Multi-level subcontracting, excessive competition in the construction industry, and low-price bids for construction projects are all very real phenomena in the construction industry that delegate responsibility to the bottom of the ladder—to those at the construction site. Therefore, the labor world calls for structural changes that will hold ordering agents liable. So far, most of the associated changes seem to have been formalities with no substantialization. With all the arrows pointing in the same direction, it seems undeniable that holding responsible those who fundamentally endanger lives is a crucial and necessary change. The labor world hopes that with such progress, ordering organizations voluntarily cooperating with subcontractors and workers to create a safe environment will become the norm.
Do the Existing Regulations Have Legal Force?
Regulations to penalize construction companies have been reinforced over the recent years. Since January, the amended Occupational Safety and Health Act, which strengthened the extent of penalty on industrial accidents, came into force. However, the labor rights activists and the public sentiment may still regard the punishment as not appropriate. There are adequate legal devices to prevent accidents. However, they are often not well applied, making the existing acts appear like an empty shell.
The labor activists have insisted on legislating the Act on the Punishment of Firms in Serious Accidents for the past few years. The law is essential to maintain the healthy lives of laborers. “The act would strengthen the responsibility of the government and firms on the prevention of industrial accidents,” said Chief Kim. He added that the existing Occupational Safety and Health Act cannot guarantee the appropriate punishment of those who are responsible for accidents. Since 2009, only 0.57 percent were sentenced to jail as they violated the existing law. Therefore, the labor activists emphasized the need for new legislation stipulating the punishment of the responsible firms and government officials.
The 20th National Assembly did not actively legislate laws on preventing industrial disasters. According to The Kyunghyang News, “Members of the National Assembly, on the whole, spilled out proposals right after the serious catastrophe happened; however, they were not very interested in dealing with it.” Only nine out of 59 proposals about precautions against conflagration were discussed in the National Assembly plenary session.
Professor Jeon Hyeong Bae (School of Law, Kangwon National University) insists that the current Occupational Safety and Health Act is strict enough; however, the actual sentencing of the punishment has been a problem. According to Professor Jeon, it seems that both prime contracting and the subcontracting companies could be punished through the recently amended act by paying a fine. He added, “To penalize the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the corporations, there should be concrete and direct evidence that the CEO violated the safety regulations.” It is likely that the CEOs would be punished, as this is often the case for small and medium-sized enterprises.
Before the amendment, the Occupational Safety and Health Act required a maximum of a 100 million won fine if a worker died as a result of an industrial accident. However, the actual penalty imposed was only 4.5 million won. For such a reason, the existing law does carry legal binding force; however, the real punishment sentenced by the court is relatively light, which is why the public regards the legal device as insufficient. The recent amendment strengthened the penalty to a maximum of one trillion won or 10 years in prison. Professor Jeon said, “The court should sentence the reasonable punishment according to the amended act.”
Likewise, legal devices already exist, but strict enforcement does not exist. The on-site safety and health monitoring system based on the Occupational Safety and Health Act is one of the typical examples. The monitoring agency from MOEL should supervise the laboring site in advance. Moreover, KOSHA should provide technological supports to improve the safety level of working places. Lastly, the companies should submit a written “Hazard Prevention Plan” before they start the construction. Establishing administrative systems to oversee the implementation would be more effective than legislating a new law.
Resolution to Prevent Further Accidents
Professor Lee pointed out three actors in charge of this accident: the relevant construction companies, industrial safety managers, and workers who lacked safety consciousness. “If at least one of these actors worked well, accidents could have been prevented.” Professor Lee added that complying with the necessary safety regulations would have significantly decreased the number of industrial accidents.
The bereaved families insist both the prime contractor Han Express and the subcontractor Kunwoo, should be responsible for this tragedy. An adequate penalty should regulate these contractors not to speed up the construction process, which threatens the laborer’s safety. For this reason, the bereaved are asking the National Assembly to either legislate a new law or reinforce the severity of the penalty in the existing law.
Aside from strengthening the severity of the penalty, Professor Lee suggested introducing new incentives for the construction companies and workers to abide by the safety precautions. “We need to eliminate ineffective regulations and formulate more incentives to motivate companies and workers to ensure safety by themselves,” said Professor Lee. These incentives may be more effective in ensuring that safety precautions are properly carried out at the site.
According to an article from Jungangilbo written by Professor Kong, as the authority of the safety managers is relatively low, it makes it difficult for them to fulfill their duties effectively. In the United States (U.S.), the safety manager has a strong authority to stop the construction process immediately if the workers do not abide by the precautions. Professor Kong asserted that in South Korea, construction companies that often set a priority on maximizing their profit margins take the lead in construction processes. Accordingly, safety supervision and management are often left undone.
Additionally, the system of subcontracting companies being auctioned off to the prime contracting construction companies should be reformed. The prime contracting companies adopt this system to reduce the unit cost of the construction. For the same reason, companies use construction materials with high inflammability and conduct welding nearby where urethane foam is used. “If this deformed contracting structure does not change, similar industrial catastrophes will be repeated,” commented Professor Kong.
The safety education method should be changed, as well. To raise the safety consciousness of the laborers on construction sites, training should be more customized for the construction sites. The current token training dealing with safety precautions of all working areas is ineffective for the laborers. Customized safety education for a particular labor process, which is conducted just before working hours, would arouse safety consciousness better.
Several measures were taken by the Korean government after the accident, including the MOEL. The MOEL planned to strengthen the safety monitoring of relevant construction companies starting from this year. Gyeonggi-do Fire Services also had a safety inspection on all other construction sites. The current administration is taking such measures to prevent similar tragedies.
Practically speaking, it is not easy to supervise a construction site often. On May 12, Lee Jae Myeong, the Governor of Gyeonggi-do, announced that he would increase the number of labor inspectors to oversee construction sites. Besides, he said during the press conference, “Adequate measurements are needed to stop the recurring industrial accidents, by imposing criminal liability to companies.”
South Korea has much to be proud of in terms of what they have achieved over such a short amount of time: literacy, democracy, technological and economic advances, and more. However, perhaps South Korea has been too caught up in the whirlwind of attempting to achieve excellence without taking a moment to contemplate its meaning and direction. The Icheon Conflagration is without a doubt a tragedy that must never be repeated again; therefore, respective parties in relation to the incident must be held responsible and urged to acknowledge workers’ rights to live and change their policies and actions accordingly. Thousands of workers have suffered every year but that can be improved. As the old saying goes, it is always better late than never to fix a problem, and the proverb seems especially meaningful in this context of stopping the deaths of workers.