An awful accident occurred Tuesday as the exterior walls of a high-rise apartment building under construction crumbled in Gwangju, 330 km southwest of Seoul, trapping six workers inside. The accident occurred barely seven months after a similar disaster in the same city, in which a building under demolition collapsed onto a road, causing 17 casualties, including bus passengers, last June.
People are more than astonished to hear that the company behind both accidents was the same one, HDC Hyundai Development Co. HDC is a large construction company ranked ninth in terms of contract amount last year, and its parent HDC Group is the nation's 28th-largest chaebol or family-run conglomerate.
We feel despair beyond anger about the company's failure to learn from the disaster only half a year ago. At that point, the company should have checked all of its construction projects and strengthened safety standards to prevent a recurrence. Instead, however, the company's CEO and other managers were bent on avoiding responsibility while denying any suspicion of illegal subcontracting, rather than taking follow-up measures to enhance safety.
The authorities' failure to thoroughly investigate and sufficiently punish those accountable at the time could be another reason for the failure to prevent a similar accident. A construction site manager was arrested and indicted, becoming the highest company official to be punished. One can reaffirm that such an irresponsible management structure, in which owners reap the profits, while lower-ranking officials are put on trial, can never stop the vicious circle of large-scale disasters.
This situation shows why the authorities should get to the bottom of the latest accident and punish those responsible regardless of their rank or position. What caused the accident is more likely to be a structural problem than simple negligence. The law enforcement authorities should not repeat the mistake of vowing to conduct a thorough probe, only to culminate in an anticlimactic conclusion.
It is equally important to strengthen the Fatal Accidents Punishment Act that will go into effect Jan. 27. In the legislative process, lawmakers weakened the punishment of perpetrators and left loopholes through which prime contractors can slip. Now is the time for all parties involved ― government and business officials alike ― to brood over HDC Hyundai Development's fiasco.