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| Police investigate the bus hit by a crane near the Gangseo District Office in western Seoul, Thursday. / Yonhap |
By Jung Min-ho
A crane collapsed onto a bus in western Seoul, Thursday, killing one passenger and injuring 15 others, according to police and firefighters.
The crane, set up at a construction site near the Gangseo District Office, suddenly collapsed at around 9:40 a.m. onto a city bus (No. 650) waiting at traffic lights, police said.
A few minutes later, rescue workers arrived at the scene and took the injured passengers to a nearby hospital, but a 53-year-old woman, surnamed Kim, was killed in the incident.
According to firefighters, one person is in intensive care after suffering serious injuries while the rest sustained minor ones.
"The horizontal strut called a boom hit the middle of the bus," a rescue worker said. "The people most seriously injured were those who were standing in the middle."
The 70-ton crane was being used to demolish a five-story building at the time of the incident. The crane, police said, collapsed as its operator was trying to lift a 5-ton excavator to the top of the building.
The excavator also fell to the ground but no one was hurt by it.
"There was a huge bang and I saw people fleeing the bus," a 36-year-old witness said.
Police said they are questioning the witnesses to figure out the cause of the incident.
This is not the first deadly crane collapse that has happened this month.
Three workers were killed and four others seriously injured after a 90-meter tall crane collapsed at a construction site in Yongin, Gyeonggi Province. The workers on the crane fell 78 meters to the ground after the crane snapped and collapsed for unclear reasons.
Only nine days later, another crane collapsed in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province, killing one man who was working while standing on it. In November, a crane collapsed killing two people in Jeonju, North Jeolla Province. In October, three others died in a crane accident in Uijeongbu, Gyeonggi Province.
This year alone, 20 people have been killed in crane accidents across the country. Many are urging the government to come up with measures to reduce the incidences of such tragedies.
Experts point out that some of the incidents occurred because the cranes in use were old and also because of the laxity of inspections.
To respond to the increasing calls for improvement, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport has started the inspection of 500 construction sites across the country.
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