Just over a month after bowing their heads in apology at the National Assembly last May, another worker has lost their life and others have been injured at a construction site managed by Hyundai Engineering & Construction. This major construction firm, which had promised to prevent a recurrence following the GTX-A rebar omission incident, has effectively found itself in the same situation all over again. Given that collapses continue to occur on construction sites even as apologies and promises are repeated, this accident raises a more fundamental question that goes beyond the issue of a single company: “Why aren’t safety management systems working on-site?”
In this article, we will summarize the facts of what happened and calmly examine the broader context of the industry in which this accident occurred, as well as the underlying structural challenges.
What Happened: Two Collapses in One Month
Why Now: A Recurring Accident One Month After an Apology
Underlying Structural Challenges: Why Do Safety Management Measures Fail on the Ground?
For Risk Assessments to Work on the Ground
In Closing
Soil Collapse at the Ulsan Shahin Project
According to a report by the Daily Post, on the morning of June 26, soil collapsed at the S-Oil Shahin Project construction site in Onsan-eup, Ulju County, Ulsan, while temporary structures supporting the excavated ground were being dismantled. In this accident, a subcontractor in his 50s who was working at the site was buried under the soil and transported to a hospital, but ultimately died. The Shahin Project is a petrochemical plant project with a total budget of approximately 9.2 trillion won, currently under construction by a consortium led by Hyundai Engineering & Construction. The police and the Ministry of Employment and Labor are investigating the cause of the ground collapse and whether the Industrial Safety and Health Act was complied with.
Reinforcing Bar Collapse at Gwangmyeong Redevelopment Site
Earlier, on June 25, rebar collapsed at an apartment redevelopment construction site in Gwangmyeong District 11, Gyeonggi Province, when the support structure gave way during rebar installation. Two foreign workers were injured after being pinned under the rebar in this accident. Authorities are verifying whether safety protocols were followed at the site and whether there were issues with the construction management process. In just two days, fatal and injury accidents have occurred in succession at two different sites operated by the same construction company.
The reason this accident is being taken particularly seriously is the timing. Last May, during a hearing on current issues held by the National Assembly’s Land, Infrastructure, and Transport Committee regarding the omission of rebar at Samsung Station on the GTX-A line, Hyundai Engineering & Construction CEO Lee Han-woo personally apologized and promised to implement measures to prevent a recurrence. However, in just over a month, fatal and injury accidents have occurred again.
One netizen commented on the Daily Post, suggesting that “instead of just repeating apologies,” the company must thoroughly review its safety management system from the ground up. This incident has once again brought to the surface the distrust that public apologies and promises do not immediately translate into actual changes on-site.
The problem is that this is not a situation unique to a single company. According to the 2024 Industrial Accident Statistics released by the Ministry of Employment and Labor in April 2025, the construction industry had the highest proportion of fatal accidents by sector, accounting for 39.7% (328 people) of the total 827 fatalities. Considering that the number of workers in the construction industry (approximately 2.08 million) is about half that of the manufacturing sector (approximately 4.08 million), this means that the risk of accidents at construction sites far exceeds that of other industries. In terms of accident types, incidents such as falls and collapses—which can be prevented with basic safety measures—still account for a significant proportion.
A System in Place, but One That Falls Short on the Ground
The reason accidents continue unabated despite the enforcement of the Serious Accidents Punishment Act and repeated inspections lies in a structural problem: safety management systems are not actually functioning on-site. While risk assessments are procedures designed for employers and workers—who know the site best—to jointly identify and reduce hazards, there are persistent criticisms that at many sites, these assessments devolve into mere “paperwork” or “15-minute, perfunctory pre-work safety briefings (TBM).” If the process stops at merely identifying risks and fails to follow through to verify whether improvements have been made, the risks remain even though the assessment forms are completed.
Risks Concentrated on Subcontracted and Foreign Workers
It is no coincidence that the victims of these two accidents were a subcontracted worker and a foreign worker, respectively. Experts have repeatedly pointed out a structural issue in which safety costs are minimized as prime contractors pass processes down to subcontractors and sub-subcontractors, concentrating risks on vulnerable workers at the very bottom of the chain. The fact that there are multiple layers of distance between those offering apologies and the accident victims is also one reason why promises fail to reach the worksite.
this is where Digital Presso focuses its attention. If risk assessments—a core tool of safety management—fail to prevent accidents not because they are “ineffective,” but because they are “carried out merely as a formality on the ground,” then the key lies in making these assessments actually work.
In fact, statistics confirm the effectiveness of risk assessments when they are properly implemented. According to the Ministry of Employment and Labor, the number of fatal accidents at construction companies that received consulting on establishing an occupational safety and health management system in 2023 decreased by 83.8% before and after the consulting (105 in 2022 → 17 in 2024; note that this is a simple comparison that does not rule out the influence of other variables). This means that when a system is in place to identify risks, implement improvements, and verify compliance through to completion, the results change.
Digital Presso’s comprehensive construction site management platform, RenameDP, is a tool focused precisely on embedding this cycle into the field. By recording site-specific risk assessments and TBMs using electronic signatures, it ensures that assessments do not disappear into paperwork but remain integrated into the daily workflow. These accumulated records can serve as legal evidence required for compliance with the Serious Accidents Punishment Act and provide a foundation for responding more quickly to signs of accidents through real-time communication and risk detection at each site. If your construction company is looking to re-evaluate its on-site safety management system from the ground up, we encourage you to examine it not just from the perspective of “whether” assessments are conducted, but from the perspective of “whether they actually work on-site.”
This incident reaffirms the fact that apologies and promises are merely a starting point; unless they lead to actual changes on-site, the same accidents will repeat themselves. Safety is not a declaration but is built through the process of being recorded and inspected every day on-site. Only when technologies and systems—which go beyond mere regulations and inspections to ensure that risk assessments function substantively rather than merely as a formality—become more firmly established will safety on construction sites finally transition from a promise to a daily reality.
Daily Post, “‘Missing Rebar’ at Hyundai Engineering & Construction, Successive Collapse Accidents… ‘Empty Promises’ to Prevent Recurrence,” 2026 — https://www.thedailypost.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=114493
Ministry of Employment and Labor, “2024 Status of Industrial Accidents,” 2025
Ministry of Employment and Labor, Industrial Accident Prevention Support Division, “Workplaces That Received Risk Assessment Support Saw a 66.7% Decrease in Fatal Accidents,” 2025 — https://www.korea.kr/briefing/pressReleaseView.do?newsId=156690392
Segye Ilbo, “Workplace Fatalities Concentrated in the Construction Industry, Characterized by the ‘Three Excesses’,” 2025
This content was produced by Digital Presso Co., Ltd. and references the above materials. Please refer to the original text for further details.
