Safety meeting held after Sinansanline accident

Labor minister presides; permanent hiring of safety staff pledged

Posco Group Chairman Jang In-hwa. [Posco Holdings]
Posco Group Chairman Jang In-hwa. [Posco Holdings]

Posco Holdings Chairman Jang In-hwa said Monday the company would conduct a full review of its group-wide safety management systems and strengthen measures to prevent a recurrence of industrial accidents, following a deadly incident at the Sinansanline double-track railway construction site.

Speaking at a safety management inspection and recurrence-prevention meeting convened by Minister of Employment and Labor Kim Young-hoon, Jang pledged that the same type of accident would not be allowed to happen again at any of the group's worksites. "We will mobilize every resource available to the company — including securing safety budgets and related investment — to restore public trust in our industrial safety," he said.

The Ministry of Employment and Labor organized the meeting after calling on Posco Group to overhaul its safety management policies and urging the conglomerate to establish and implement rigorous recurrence-prevention measures. The meeting followed an industrial accident at the Posco E&C Sinansanline Section 3-2 double-track railway site on June 9.

Senior group executives joined Jang at the meeting, including Posco Safety Solution President Yoo In-jong, Posco President Lee Hee-geun and Posco E&C President Song Chi-young. Each presented safety measures for their respective subsidiaries and outlined plans to eliminate repeat accidents at the same worksites.

Minister Kim said particularly hazardous sites such as the Sinansanline project require special measures. He urged the group to expand safety investment and called for concrete improvements — including hiring more safety and health managers — to ensure safety activities function effectively on the ground.

Jang said the company would accept input from any expert, inside or outside the group. He added that the Sinansanline construction section reaches depths of 70 meters, making it more than twice as dangerous as a standard high-risk worksite. The company had therefore converted all on-site safety specialists across every section to permanent positions and deployed them in numbers exceeding the legally required minimum. "We will concentrate supervisors from the world's top safety firms across all Sinansanline sites and manage them rigorously through to project completion to ensure there is no recurrence," he said.

Posco Group plans to inspect and overhaul the safety management systems across all its subsidiaries — including construction and steel operations — in the wake of the Sinansanline accident.


eyre@heraldcorp.com