Vendor booked on negligence charges in Daegu ceiling collapse

DAEGU — Police have booked the vendor behind a sales event for older shoppers in Daegu, where a ceiling collapse on Saturday left 38 people injured.

The vendor is under investigation on suspicion of professional negligence resulting in injury, the Daegu Metropolitan Police Agency said Monday. The vendor, who had gathered older customers on the building’s second floor that day to sell household goods, is accused of failing in a duty to keep them safe.

Police also questioned the building owner’s son, who manages the building, and a former operator of a billiards hall on the second floor as witnesses. The floor was a billiards hall until its operator changed around 2019, and its ceiling was repaired once after that.

The first operator of the billiards hall told police, in effect, that “the ceiling structure at the time of the accident is different from when I ran the billiards hall.”

Investigators are concentrating first on who carried out the ceiling repairs, when they were done and what they involved. Police will use the findings to determine whether faulty repair work caused the collapse and whether to seek the same charge against the building owner and others.

The collapse occurred at about 10:16 a.m. on Saturday on the second floor of a four-story commercial building in Gwaneum-dong, Buk District. The building, completed in 1994, was hosting a sale of kitchenware and other goods aimed at older people.

The finish on one side of the ceiling fell first. Over about 10 seconds, other sections of the suspended ceiling, which hung below the concrete slab, came down one after another.

Thirty-eight of the 66 people at the scene suffered minor injuries as they evacuated the building. Eighteen were treated at hospitals, and five of them were admitted.

Police carried out a joint forensic inspection of the scene on Sunday with the National Forensic Service, the Daegu city government and the Buk District Office. The team examined how the ceiling finish had been installed and why it fell. They also analyzed CCTV footage and debris from the second floor to pinpoint where the finish came down.

The accident occurred when the ceiling finish and the steel frame supporting it fell together. The building’s concrete structure did not collapse.

The ceiling at the scene consisted of three layers of gypsum board and paperboard on a steel frame, the inspection found. Police are checking whether the paperboard and other layers were added to the original ceiling. They are also looking into 10 lights the vendor installed on the ceiling while preparing for the sales event.

“We are checking whether the ceiling was installed in three layers from the start or whether layers were added later,” an official from the Daegu Metropolitan Police Agency said. “The forensic results are expected to take about two weeks.”

The building has a total floor area of 892 square meters (9,600 square feet). A grocery store on the first floor closed at the end of September. The second floor sat empty until the vendor, a household goods seller, rented it on a one-month contract starting Oct. 3. The vendor had held a similar monthlong sales event there in March last year. The building owner’s household uses the third and fourth floors.

Because of its size, the building was not subject to regular safety inspections, according to the Buk District Office. Under current rules, regular inspections apply only to buildings with a total floor area of 3,000 square meters or more.

The Daegu city government plans to tighten inspections of small, aging buildings, where safety management tends to be weaker. Public and private inspectors will jointly carry out intensive safety checks through December on 1,743 small buildings that are at least 30 years old and 500 to 1,000 square meters in total floor area.

The city will also brief the owners and managers of 22,435 neighborhood commercial buildings that are at least 30 years old and no larger than 1,000 square meters on the Gwaneum-dong accident this month. It will urge them to check the ceiling finishes in their buildings. The city will keep up guidance and education programs to strengthen building owners’ safety practices.

The city, Buk District and related agencies will jointly run a one-stop support center for those affected by the accident. It will handle everything from damage reports and counseling to medical care and psychological recovery.

“We will swiftly take necessary steps, including intensive inspections of aging facilities that fall through the cracks and safety guidance and education, so that citizens can go about their lives with peace of mind,” Daegu Mayor Choo Kyung-ho said.

BY BAEK KYUNG-SEO [[email protected]]