8 out of 10 Large Hazardous Material Storage and Handling Sites Violate Safety Management Regulations

1113 Violations: Criminal Charges, Fines Imposed, Administrative Orders

[Asia Economy Reporter Lim Cheol-young] The Fire Agency announced on the 1st that it conducted inspections on 1,816 sites, including large-scale hazardous material manufacturing facilities, across 99 business sites nationwide over the past year, and detected 1,113 violations at 792 manufacturing facilities in 77 business sites.

The Fire Agency has been conducting a full inspection over a three-year plan since 2019 on 10,269 manufacturing facilities within 413 large-scale hazardous material storage and handling business sites nationwide to prevent similar accidents and strengthen safety management of hazardous material facilities, following a large-scale oil storage tank fire accident in Goyang-si, Gyeonggi-do in 2018 that caused approximately 11 billion KRW in damages.

The inspection focused on safety-vulnerable facilities prioritized based on the scale and aging degree of hazardous material facilities. A joint public-private inspection was conducted with 1,859 fire officers, 44 experts from the Korea Fire Industry Technology Institute, and industry-academia specialists. The inspection concentrated on the location, structure, and maintenance status of facilities and equipment, including the operation of fire extinguishing equipment such as the flame arrester on the vent pipe, which was the cause of the 2018 Goyang oil depot fire. Additionally, the performance of hazardous material safety managers, compliance with storage and handling standards, and management of self-emergency response plans in case of fire were also checked.

As a result of the inspection, violations were detected in 77 business sites, accounting for 77.8% of the 99 inspected sites, totaling 1,113 violations. Regarding these violations, 2 cases were subject to criminal charges, 15 cases were fined, and 1,018 cases received administrative orders. For 78 relatively minor violations, on-site corrective actions were taken.

Nam Hwa-young, Director of Fire Policy Bureau, stated, "By the end of this year, we will complete full inspections on the remaining 2,474 manufacturing facilities out of the total 10,269 large-scale hazardous material manufacturing sites nationwide." He added, "Based on the results, we will supplement key management items for hazardous material facilities and review plans to regularize inspections to further enhance the safety of large-scale hazardous material storage and handling business sites."

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