2020 Icheon Warehouse Fire

Overview

At about 1:30 p.m. on April 29, 2020, a fire broke out on basement level 2 of the construction site of the Hanixpress refrigerated and cold storage logistics center (two basement levels and four above-ground levels) in Sogo-ri, Mogae-myeon, Icheon-si, Gyeonggi Province. The fire spread rapidly through the urethane foam insulation to the entire building and was extinguished about five hours later after 113 fire trucks and 259 personnel were deployed. Of the 78 people working at the site at the time, 38 died and 10 were injured. Most of the dead were day laborers employed by subcontractors responsible for electrical, painting, and facility work, and the victims included one Chinese national and two Kazakh nationals (Money Today). Because its cause and circumstances were nearly identical to the 2008 Icheon cold storage warehouse fire in January 2008, which killed 40 people in the same city, it was called a "tragedy repeated after 12 years."

Causes

According to the investigation, sparks from welding work on the refrigerant piping of the cold storage room ignited the urethane foam on the walls and ceiling. Urethane foam not only catches fire easily and spreads quickly, but also releases toxic gases such as hydrogen cyanide when burning, so many workers could not evacuate in time. The sandwich panel structure also rapidly raised the internal temperature.

The courts and investigative authorities concluded that safety management at the site was overall severely deficient. No fire watch was assigned to the welding work, the passage to the machine room, which should have served as an escape route, was blocked, and no emergency alarm system was installed. The client demanded a shortened construction period, and the contractor carried out several processes such as welding and urethane work simultaneously, increasing the danger. In April 2019, during the review of the hazard prevention plan, the Korea Occupational Safety and Health Agency assigned this site the highest risk grade and issued a conditional approval. Afterward, through two document reviews and four on-site inspections, it warned of the fire risk from welding and urethane work, but these problems were not corrected.

Trials

In December 2020, the Suwon District Court Yeoju Branch sentenced the site manager of the contractor Geonwoo to three years and six months in prison, and the TF team leader of the client Hanixpress to eight months in prison, suspended for two years. It also sentenced personnel of the supervision team and the contractor to imprisonment and fined the contractor corporation 30 million won. The court pointed out that the attempt to shorten the construction period had increased the danger. In July 2021, the appellate court acquitted the client's team leader, stating that under the law at the time it was difficult to hold the client directly responsible for safety measures, and reduced the site manager's sentence to three years in prison. The Supreme Court finalized this ruling in November 2021. Because the punishments for a tragedy that killed 38 people were so limited, strong criticism arose that they were a "slap on the wrist."