Three Foreign Workers Killed at South Korean Fishery
Anyone surprised that these workers were killed because they did not have proper safety equipment?:
Three migrant workers were found dead, and another one is in a coma, following an accident inside an underground tank at a fishery products processing factory in the eastern county of Yeongdeok on Tuesday, local fire authorities said.
The four — three Thais and one Vietnamese — were found at the bottom of the tank at 2:30 p.m., according to the North Gyeongsang Province Fire Service Headquarters.
The workers, whose names have yet to be made public, are believed to have suffocated while doing maintenance work inside the tank at the factory in Chuksan Port in Yeongdeok, some 250 kilometers southeast of Seoul.
The 42-year-old and 28-year-old Thai workers and the 53-year-old Vietnamese person died in the accident, and the other victim, a 34-year-old Thai, is currently in a coma, the fire headquarters said.
The tank stores byproducts from the processing of fish and shellfish, it added.
The rescue authorities said the workers appeared to have entered the tank without safety equipments even though there was a high risk of inhaling toxic gas from decomposed fishery products.
Yonhap
Korea….safety last, if ever.
It’s a tragic part of being a guest-worker. Condolences to the families and friends of the departed.
That said, South Korean political leaders and business owners should stop treating humans as expendable. The lives they save may include their own.
Way back when I was a university freshman in Seoul, oh so many years ago, one of my Korean classmates was showing me around Myeongdong. At the time there was a lot of connstruction there, and every construction site had “안천 제일” on a big sign. I asked her what that meant. Her response was “Nothing. It’s just decoration.” Yep, the more things change, the more they stay the same.
Unfortunately, this happens a lot, all over the world-even in the US. A worker unknowingly goes down into a tank or somewhere with a very low oxygen level, and passes out. Other workers see him, and try to rescue him, and pass out and suffocate themselves. Three men died this way in the auto plant I worked in.
@johnhenry, you mean 안전제일? I get confused a bit over that one character, too. (치 is more like ‘j’ and 지 is more like ‘ch’). Note: my wife helped me with this…
@don, yeah, and there are crane accidents, excavations that cave in, and even folks who reconnect electricity when others are working on. We’ve all seen coworkers “cut corners” and cause issues. Thankfully I’ve never had a coworker die from a preventable mistake (mine, theirs, or management’s).
Yeah, setnaffa. I just made a typo.
@johnhenry, at least you knew what the signs meant…. 😀