I think I’ll be sticking to the buses and cabs for the next several days.
Apparently, a section of railbed collapsed in northwestern Seoul yesterday, and the Korean Railroad Corp. kept trains running through the area up until the ground gave way, despite warnings that a nearby construction accident was endangering the track.
Pic from the JoongAng Ilbo.
Police said the accident happened after retaining walls on a subway construction site next to the railway collapsed, spilling sand under the railway into the construction site and collapsing the track bed.
It could have been worse.
A train carrying around 150 passengers passed the accident spot seven minutes before it collapsed, even after the Korea Railroad Corp., the state-run operator of the railway, was informed that signs of a railway collapse were appearing just 17 minutes before the accident.
Ssangyong Engineering and Construction, which was in charge of the project next to the railway, said it detected an impending collapse at 4:30 p.m., 44 minutes before the accident, and withdrew all of its workers from the construction site, according to police.
Police said the company informed the Korea Railroad Corp. at 4:57 p.m.
But the railway operator allowed trains to keep running, merely slowing their speed to 20 kilometers per hour, police said.
Of four trains passing the accident spot after that, two were carrying around 150 passengers each. One bound for Munsan passed at 5:02 p.m. and one bound for Seoul passed at 5:07 p.m.
But I bet no one had to wait on a late train! And, that’s the important thing, right?
