Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport Conducts Special Inspection of Excavation Sites Over 10m Deep

[Asia Economy Reporter Moon Jiwon] The government has launched a special inspection targeting sites conducting excavation work deeper than 10 meters underground in urban areas. This is to prevent accidents such as recent ground subsidence.

The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport announced on the 14th that it will conduct special inspections on 107 construction sites identified through underground safety impact assessment data for excavation works deeper than 10 meters, requested by local governments to the Ministry since January last year. Among these, 76 sites are in the metropolitan area, and 31 are outside the metropolitan area.

The special inspections will begin on the 15th. During this inspection period, the focus will be on risk factors such as the appropriateness of implementing the underground safety impact assessment agreements, the safety and proper construction of temporary retaining walls, and the adequacy of safety management plan implementation.

If violations such as failure to construct according to the underground safety impact assessment or safety management plan, or inadequate retaining wall construction management are found during the inspection, strict measures will be taken according to relevant laws, including suspension of construction, penalty points, and fines.

Meanwhile, in December last year, special inspections were conducted on the new residential-commercial complex construction site in Baekseok-dong, Ilsan-gu, Goyang City, where ground subsidence occurred, and the underground public walkway installation site in Yeouido-dong, Yeongdeungpo-gu, Seoul.

During the inspection, a total of five violations were detected and correction orders were issued. Among these, two cases of insufficient safety facility installation and one case of inadequate regular safety inspection will be subject to penalty points.

Jung Yong-sik, Director of Technical Safety Policy at the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, emphasized, "Through this special inspection, we will encourage the industry to proactively address risk factors at construction sites and prevent accidents such as ground subsidence caused by construction work in urban areas."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.