Vietnamese brothers dead at construction site

Kim Oh-jin, first vice minister of land, infrastructure and transport, inspects the construction site in Anseong, Gyeonggi Province, where two Vietnamese brothers died on Wednesday. The visit came a few hours after the accident. (Yonhap)

Two Vietnamese workers killed at a construction site incident in Anseong, Gyeonggi Province on Wednesday have been identified as brothers, officials said.

According to Gyeonggi Nambu Provincial Police and Anseong City Government on Thursday, the victims -- aged 30 and 29 -- lived and worked together here.

The older brother first came to Korea some seven years ago. The younger followed about two years ago to live with his brother and sister-in-law.

The victims died after the uppermost floor of a nine-story shopping complex under construction collapsed onto the floor below at 11:49 a.m. They were crushed between the two floors.

The brothers were found in a state of cardiac arrest by rescue authorities at 12:25 p.m. and 1:06 p.m., respectively, and rushed to a nearby hospital. Emergency authorities performed cardio-pulmonary resuscitation on the victims, but they were declared dead after arriving at the hospital.

The two individuals were pouring concrete at the time of the collapse. The construction formwork and the beams that were used to support the floor beneath failed to sustain the weight of the concrete.

Four other workers sustained injuries in the collapse.

The fire authorities deployed a total of 52 personnel to respond to the accident.

Gyeonggi Nambu Provincial Police launched a 49-member task force to inspect the collapse. It launched an inspection on Kiseong Construction Co., Ltd., which was overseeing the construction in the process.

The construction of the building began at the end of February and is set to be completed by late May 2024.

The incident follows the death of a 25-year-old Myanmar construction worker who was hit by a truck while building a highway in South Gyeongsang Province on Monday. In a separate case, a 30-year-old foreign worker, whose nationality was unidentified, died in an apartment construction site in Incheon last week after being impaled by a metal reinforcement bar.

By Jung Min-kyung(mkjung@heraldcorp.com)