Police and officials from the Seoul Metropolitan Government investigate the collapse of the Seosomun overpass in Seoul, Wednesday. Yonhap
The Seoul Metropolitan Government offered its first detailed account Wednesday of how the Seosomun overpass collapsed, as police and prosecutors moved to speed up a probe into whether demolition procedures were properly followed.
At a press briefing, Lim Choon-keun, head of the city government’s infrastructure bureau, expressed condolences to the families of the three people killed and three seriously injured when a span of the 60-year-old overpass crashed down over a railway on Tuesday.
The official outlined the demolition schedule, insisting that earlier design reviews had found no significant issues with the structural stability of the girders under the chosen method.
According to Lim, workers began cutting the S9 slab — the ninth deck segment spanning the railway — at about 1:30 a.m. Roughly an hour later, they detected a deflection of about 29 millimeters between two girders and halted the operation.
