Transport Ministry to launch audit into highway management after series of collisions leaves 5 dead

The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport said Sunday that it would audit the Korea Expressway Corporation after a series of multivehicle collisions occurred on a highway on Saturday, leaving five people dead.

A car burns after an accident on the Seosan-Yeongdeok Expressway on Jan. 10. [GYEONGBUK FIRE SERVICE HEADQUARTERS]

The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport said Sunday that it would audit the Korea Expressway Corporation after a series of multivehicle collisions occurred on a highway on Saturday, leaving five people dead.

Police are concentrating on reconstructing the sequence of collisions and determining whether black ice played a role.

The series of collisions occurred near the Namsangju Interchange on the Seosan–Yeongdeok Expressway in North Gyeongsang on Saturday morning. The ministry said it would examine whether the accidents were linked to a failure to carry out preventive deicing. The crashes involved 16 vehicles in total.

Transport Minister Kim Yun-duk ordered a comprehensive review of the expressway operator’s management and emergency response, including whether it complied with winter road safety regulations.

Under national guidelines, highway operators are required to apply deicing agents in advance in cases when forecasts warn of snow or freezing rain, when air temperatures are expected to fall below 4 degrees Celsius, when road surface temperatures drop below 2 degrees Celsius or when rain begins during freezing conditions.

The ministry said it had begun the audit immediately and would take strict action if it found lapses in management or failures to follow required procedures.

The scene of the accident that occurred on Jan. 10, as captured by closed-circuit television operated by the Korea Expressway Corporation [KOREA EXPRESSWAY CORPORATION]

According to the police, the first crash occurred at about 6:10 a.m. Saturday, when a 9.5-ton truck traveling toward Yeongdeok near the Namsangju Interchange broke through a guardrail and plunged off the roadway near the interchange, killing the driver. Seven cars just behind the truck also crashed, injuring seven people.

About an hour later, at 7:02 a.m., a second collision occurred about one kilometer away in the opposite direction, toward Cheongju. A passenger car failed to slow and slammed into a trailer truck, triggering a nine-vehicle pileup that killed four people and injured one.

Police are analyzing dashcam footage and questioning drivers and passengers to clarify how the crashes took place.

The Korea Expressway Corporation said rain began around 5 a.m. Saturday, making icing difficult to rule out.

“Officials started spreading calcium chloride on the affected stretch between the Namsangju Interchange and the Nakdong Junction at 6:20 a.m., but the collisions occurred before the work was completed,” an official from the corporation said. “We had patrols inspect the roads four times between 10 p.m. Friday and 4:30 a.m. Saturday and found road conditions to be normal.”

This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom. BY CHO MUN-GYU [yim.seunghye@joongang.co.kr]