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A search and rescue squad mobilizes heavy machinery on Sunday as they enter their sixth day of searching for workers who went missing when the outer wall of an apartment building collapsed in Gwangju. (Yonhap News)

South Korean police investigating the collapse of an apartment under construction in Gwangju are looking into the possibility of poor-quality concrete, shoddy work and illegal subcontracting. But their investigation is likely to take some time given the difficulty of accessing the site of the collapse that left one worker dead and five missing.

Investigators with the Gwangju Metropolitan Police said Sunday that they’re looking into the possibility of illegal subcontracting after learning that the eight workers who were pouring concrete on the floor of the 39th story at the time of the collapse on Jan. 11 were employed not by the company officially subcontracted to perform construction, but by a concrete pump truck company. The developer of this housing project is the HDC Hyundai Development Company.

“It’s true that employees of the pump truck company were doing the concrete pouring work. The question of whether that was illegal subcontracting is something that will be determined after reviewing various documents,” a source with the investigation explained.

A concrete pouring schedule for block 201 of the Hwajeong Ipark housing development that was disclosed by the Korean Construction Workers’ Union, which is affiliated with the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, showed that the building was going up at the rate of one story per week, with workers pouring concrete for the floor of the 35th story on Nov. 23 and reaching the ceiling of the 38th floor on Dec. 24.

Workers had poured concrete for the walls of the equipment space that houses piping on Dec. 31 and were pouring concrete for the floor of the 39th story, where the guesthouse was supposed to go, when the collapse occurred on Jan. 11. Some experts have suggested that the concrete was of low quality or wasn’t allowed to cure for long enough, but the construction site manager reportedly gave a statement attesting that the work was handled properly. Workers with other subcontractors have also attested that they followed the instructions of the prime contractor and construction supervisor.

“We’ve had the site manager and construction supervisor come in for questioning, but because our current priority is finding and rescuing the missing people, it wouldn’t be feasible to investigate the site or bring in people on the ground,” said Cho Yeong-il, head of the criminal affairs division of the Gwangju Police Department.

“Once on-site safety measures have been completed, we intend to carry out a joint investigation with the National Forensic Service and other groups.”

The construction supervisor told the police that he’d been at the on-site office, and not at the concrete pouring site, when the collapse occurred.

“We have removed debris and carried out a focused search from the fourth basement level to the rooftop, including the first basement level, where the initial victim was found, but we haven’t found any more of the missing people,” an official with Gwangju’s office of disaster safety countermeasures said in a press briefing at 5 pm Sunday.

“We had to halt work for a while because of the wind and other weather conditions. We’ll carry out the search and rescue work thoroughly, so that no stones are left unturned,” said Mun Hui-jun, head of the Gwangju Seobu Fire Station.

An autopsy found that multiple organ failure was the cause of death of a worker in his 60s who was found buried beneath rubble in the stairs on the first basement level on Friday afternoon. This worker was from Gyeonggi Province; his wake will be held at a funeral home in Seoul.

HDC, the developer in charge of the housing project, will soon finish installing a 1,200-ton tower crane that’s needed to dismantle a 145-meter tower crane hanging from the upper part of the partially collapsed apartment building. An extra tower crane of the same size will be deployed to ensure the safety of the dismantling work.

By Kim Yong-hee and Kim Yoon-ju, staff reporters

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