Fire Compensation Terms Accepted
Warehouse Company to Pay W240 Million Per Victim on Average
By Kim Rahn
Staff Reporter
The families of the 40 victims of a fire at a warehouse in Icheon, Gyeonggi Province agreed in principle with the warehouse company late Saturday to an average of 240 million won per victim being given in compensation.
The families will receive between 140 million won and 480 million won ― 75 million won from the company and the rest from occupational disaster insurance funds.
The compensation, the product of more than eight hours of negotiations, is higher than that given to foreign workers here in previous disasters. The Uzbek victim and some of the 13 ethnic Koreans from China had been overstaying their visas, but the amount of compensation would be the same as for those here legally, according to the Korea Labor Welfare Corporation.
Although the families and company made verbal agreements about the compensation, the families had lawyers reviewing the draft, claiming some of the agreements could be disadvantageous to them. They said the draft did not address what they would be able to do should the company default on its agreement to pay the money.
Following this, some of the families of victims whose identities had been confirmed delayed their plan to hold funeral services Sunday.
For the ethnic Korean-Chinese victims, the government has issued visas for 34 of their family members in China so that they can come to Korea.
Police plan to take legal action against several people for the accident, including the company head, the warehouse manager and safety director. The company had changed the sprinkler and fireproof shutter systems, which meant the facilities could not operate automatically, according to officials.
``They also made emergency bells inoperative. Such system changes clearly were part of the reason for the massive disaster, so company managers involved should be punished,'' a police officer said.
Police are examining documents seized during a raid on the company and its subsidiaries to check allegations that the company obtained illegal approval for the construction of the warehouse and changed the design of the building.
In the meantime, the company made a public apology Saturday. ``We'll root out our past bad practices. We deeply apologize to the bereaved families and the public,'' a company official said in the apology.
He added the firm would regularly contribute part of its earnings to society under the names of the victims.