At around 2 p.m. on the 19th, an accident occurred at Seun Shopping Mall in Jongno-gu, Seoul, where a part of the concrete exterior wall fell and the owner of a store on the first floor was seriously injured.
According to police and fire authorities, a portion of the exterior안전놀이터 wall fell from the fifth floor of the building and landed on the feet of Mr. A, a merchant in his 60s who runs a store on the first floor. The weight of the fallen outer wall was found to be 83 kg.
In this accident, Mr. A was seriously injured to the point where his toes were almost amputated and he was taken to the hospital.
The district office estimates that the cause is the aging of the building.
Seun Shopping Center, which was completed in 1968, was at risk of demolition in 2006 when the shopping area was designated as a redevelopment promotion zone. In 2009, Hyundai Shopping Mall, which was part of Sewoon Shopping Center, was demolished, but the redevelopment plan was canceled in 2014 and the remaining buildings were preserved.
An official from the district office said, “As a result of an on-site inspection conducted by the Regional Safety Center, it was determined that there is no risk of further collapse. We will monitor the situation to see if more safety measures are needed.”
The police plan to investigate the details of the incident and whether the building management was negligent, based on closed-circuit ( CC ) TV and witness statements.