Gwangju Collapse Accident Day 26... Speeding Up Buried Victim Rescue and Missing Person Search

1 Missing, 1 Buried... Rescue Delayed Due to Debris

On the afternoon of the 18th last month, firefighters were searching for missing persons by inserting a search device called a Search Tap (a rod equipped with a camera, microphone, and speaker) through the collapsed debris on the 22nd floor at the site of the Hwajeong I-Park collapse accident in Hwajeong-dong, Seo-gu, Gwangju. [Image source=Yonhap News]

On the 26th day since the collapse accident at Gwangju Hwajeong I-Park, rescue authorities are making every effort to rescue the buried victims and search for the missing on the 5th.

The Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters and the local integrated accident response headquarters announced at a regular briefing on the morning of the same day that rescue operations are underway for a worker found buried near Line 2 on the 26th floor.

Among the six workers who went missing while working at the site due to the building collapse, four buried victims have been recovered as of the previous day. Currently, one person is missing, and one is still buried. The buried person was found near Room 2 on the 26th floor, but rescue is delayed due to layers of debris piled up.

Rescue authorities have been removing debris to carry out rescue operations for the buried victim on the 26th floor, lowering the height of debris on the 28th floor to 50 cm from the floor. The area is piled with concrete chunks, bundles of rebar, and various construction materials.

Debris removal work was carried out overnight on the 28th floor, and similar intensity rescue operations are planned for the day, but more time is expected to be needed to complete the rescue of the buried victim.

Rescue authorities are also conducting search operations for the remaining missing person. There is a possibility that the missing person, whose location has not yet been identified, may be found during the process of pioneering access routes for rescuing the buried victims.

Earlier, rescue authorities discovered two buried victims during the access route pioneering process. If objects presumed to be personal belongings are found during debris removal, the access route pioneering work is temporarily suspended, and missing persons are searched for using endoscopic exploration.

There is a prospect that the remaining missing person can also be found in the building’s Unit 2, floors 25 to 28, where many buried victims have been discovered so far. Rescue authorities deployed four search and rescue dogs to floors 23 to 28 for the search on the morning of the same day.

At around 3:46 p.m. on the 11th of last month, a partial collapse occurred from the 38th to the 23rd floor of Building 201 of Hwajeong I-Park Apartments, under construction by Hyundai Development Company. As a result of this accident, six construction workers responsible for window installation, plastering, and fire-fighting equipment works went missing.

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