11 Killed, 54 Hurt in 29-Car Pileup

A 29-vehicle chain-reaction collision on the Seohae Daegyo, or Seohae Expressway, killed 11 people and injured 54 others on October 3.

Around 7:42 a.m., a 25-ton freight car bumped into a one-ton truck on a two-lane stretch of highway heading toward Seoul in Seohae Daegyo, Manho-ri, Poseung-myeon, Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province. Twenty-eight following cars, trailers and buses collided with each other.

Eleven people were killed including Kim Kwang-min (39) and Song Min-gu (13), and 54 people were injured either slightly or seriously.

The dead were taken to several hospitals; six people were sent to Seongsim Center Hospital in Pyeongtaek, two were delivered to Bongdam Funeral Center in Hwaseong. The other deaths were sent to each of Paik Hospital in Anjung, Paik Hospital in Dangjin and Dankook University Hospital in Cheonan.

The deceased are not yet identified besides Mr. Song and Mr. Kim because they were either severely burnt or found in the mass of crashed vehicles.

The police estimate the reason of the collision as a fault of freight car’s driver, who might not have been able to detect preceding cars due to the dense fog which limited the visibility range to no more than 50m.

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