Tales of an American moveable family
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Entrance
Originally uploaded by David_Harris
This last weekend, Susie visited her first Zoo. In general, she paid more attention to the random pigeons than the unique, captive animals.
The notable exception was the ducks at the water fowl exhibit. She loved the ducks so much, that all the birds in the exhibit were called “ducks”.
We hope to go back and visit the rest of the park. We also hope to visit Seoul’s main Zoo at Seoul Grand Park sometime this Fall.
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?
Seoul Survivors’ podcast on how to practice “defensive walking” in Seoul. This is so true, and conveys the reality of the situation much more accurately than all my previous complaints on the subject do.
Hat tip: Lost Nomad
Taken this summer at Deoksugung. For more information, check out the captions on the photos at the Flickr site by clicking ‘photo link’ for each one.
