Park chun-guan, a representative of S-Connect, the parent company of ARICELL Battery factory in Gyeonggi-do, South Korea, was arrested Tuesday after 23 people were killed and 8 injured in a fire, Yonhap news agency reported Tuesday. The fire broke out at about 10:31 a.m. on June 24, and the victims were mostly foreigners.
Fire 2024 investigate the scene of a fire at battery maker Aricell’s factory in Hwaseong Fortress, Gyeonggi Province, on June 25,2010 in Hwaseong, South Korea.
The The Korea Herald said Tuesday that the local court of Suwon issued a warrant for his arrest on suspicion of serious violations of laws including the “Major disasters punishment law”. It was the first arrest of a business representative since the law came into effect in January 2022. In addition, the court also issued an arrest warrant for park chung-yan, the director-general of the factory and the son of Park Chun-guan, on suspicion of violating the industrial safety law, the dispatch law and the Corporate manslaughter law.
The results of an investigation by South Korean police and the Ministry of Employment and Labour showed that the ARICELL battery factory in Hwaseong Fortress was manufacturing batteries, Chosun Ilbo reported, the illegal employment of unskilled workers to catch up on production schedules and the production of defective batteries in the process led to explosions and fires, resulting in a high number of casualties.
Reuters reported that the workers were temporary workers who had not received proper safety and emergency escape training. When Pu Chunguan entered the court for the hearing, he did not answer the reporter’s question“Does he admit the accusation of illegal labor dispatch?”“What is the reason for the lack of proper safety training?” But he said he was“Sorry.”. In addition, the South Korean police said the factory is also suspected of data manipulation and quality inspection fraud to achieve cooperation with the military.
According to Reuters, after the fire, Park offered a public apology, but insisted at the time that the company had followed all necessary safety precautions and staff training codes, and when asked by reporters whether the factory’s temporary workers are illegal labor dispatch, also denied. According to a police investigation, the factory’s emergency exit was closed and locked when it was supposed to be open, the Yonhap news agency reported. It is understood that the factory in hiring workers and adjusting the work content did not carry out the necessary accident response training.