South Korea power station collapse kills three

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THREE workers have died following the collapse of a boiler tower at an end-of-life power station in South Korea.

The Ulsan Thermal Power Plant, a branch of the state-owned energy company Korea East-West Power Co, was decommissioned in 2021 and is in the process of being dismantled.

Nine workers were working on the 60 m boiler tower when the structure collapsed last Thursday afternoon.

A rescue operation is being led by Ulsan’s fire department, with more than 340 rescue workers and dozens of vehicles on site.

While two workers were rescued and taken to hospital, three others were confirmed dead following the collapse. One died during rescue operations early Friday, another was recovered later that morning and a third was pronounced dead at the scene.

Hazardous site

The boiler tower, one of three on site, was being weakened – which involved cutting the tower’s steel supports – to ease its collapse during blasting work.

Firefighters have had to work through 30 m of steel and other debris to get to the site of the tower collapse, reports say. Experts have raised the possibility that a heavier load of steel was placed on one side of the structure, causing it to give way.

Kim Jeong-shik of Ulsan’s fire department, said: “The rescue site is currently covered with large amounts of asbestos and glass fibres…and the space is extremely cramped, forcing rescue workers to manually clear the debris by hand in order to carry out the rescue operations.”

Rescue efforts were temporarily halted on Friday amid concerns about “unstable rubble”, as weakened structures around the tower risked collapse due to vibrations from the rescue equipment, Kim said.

Efforts continue to recover two remaining workers from the site, though the fire department has said they are presumed dead. The exact location of the remaining two workers remains unknown.