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Four dead, six injured in highway bridge construction collapse on Gyeonggi-South Chungcheong border

Published: 25 Feb. 2025, 11:08 Updated: 28 Feb. 2025, 15:10

LEE SOO-JUNG
[email protected]

A bridge at a highway construction site collapses in Anseong, Gyeonggi on Feb. 25. [YONHAP]

Four construction workers were killed and six injured after a bridge structure collapsed at a highway construction site in Anseong, Gyeonggi, on Tuesday morning.

According to fire authorities, five concrete beams atop 52-meter-high (170-foot-high) pillars collapsed around 9:49 a.m. in a border area between Anseong and Cheonan in South Chungcheong. Ten personnel working on the bridge were trapped by debris, causing the deaths and injuries, according to Chungcheongnam-do Fire Services.

Fire and rescue authorities received the accident report at 9:50 a.m. and arrived at the site at 9:59 a.m. The National Fire Agency then declared a national mobilization order, issued when a disaster cannot be managed at the regional level. Fire services from Gyeonggi and North Chungcheong also joined the rescue efforts.

The workers were reportedly installing the beams and inspecting construction work using a specialized crane at the moment of the collapse. The crane, called a launching gantry, moves segments, girders and other sections in bridge construction.

The beams that fell stretched for approximately 210 meters.

“While installing the beams on the bridge, it appeared that weight was concentrated on one side and caused an imbalance,” Lee Song-kyu, head of the Safety Professional Association of Korea, told local broadcaster SBS. “A falling beam caused other connected beams to fall like dominoes.”

Firefighters conduct a rescue mission at the site of a bridge collapse in Anseong, Gyeonggi, on Feb. 25. [YONHAP]

The ten victims — seven Koreans and three Chinese nationals — were sent to hospitals, including three critically injured workers transported by helicopter. Among the four dead, two were Korean and two were Chinese.

The rescue mission ended after authorities found the last victim dead at around 2:21 p.m. Fire authorities mobilized 102 pieces of rescue equipment and 211 personnel, including special rescue experts and chemical specialists.

A witness surnamed Park said he saw upper structures collapsing amid crashing sounds while driving back to his hometown. He said the structures were being installed very high above the ground and were quite long.

Another witness living near the accident site, Kim Oh-sik, 55, told the JoongAng Ilbo that he saw a tremor before the collapse of the beams in a surveillance camera clip.

A view of a bridge that collapsed at a highway construction site at Anseong, Gyeonggi, on Feb. 25. [YONHAP]

In the afternoon, a 78-officer team from the Gyeonggi Nambu Provincial Police Agency launched an investigation to determine the precise cause of the collapse.

Hyundai Engineering is the lead construction company with a 50 percent stake in the project. The company apologized for the casualties and promised its active cooperation in determining the cause of the accident.

The highway under construction stretches 134 kilometers from Guri in Gyeonggi to Sejong in the Chungcheong region. Construction — 60 percent complete as of Tuesday — is scheduled for completion in late 2026.

Feb. 25: Updated lede, casualties and the precise location of the accident site and added details.

BY LEE SOO-JUNG, SHIN JIN-HO [[email protected]]