South Korea battery maker apologises for deadly fire but says it complied with safety rules, 25 June 2024, Reuters

The CEO of a South Korean lithium battery manufacturer apologised on Tuesday (24 June) following a massive factory fire that killed 23 workers, but said the company had complied with all required safety precautions and training.

The fire on Monday (23 June), which began at a factory with 35,000 lithium batteries, produced thick smoke that spread quickly and the workers inside the second-floor location likely lost consciousness and succumbed within seconds, fire officials said...

Seventeen of those who died were Chinese, and one was Laotian. The rest were South Koreans...

Hundreds of thousands of migrant workers in South Korea are at risk from accidents like the factory fire, as they make up a large portion of the workforce but face a greater risk of injury or death.

Aricell CEO Park Soon-kwan offered condolences to the workers who were killed and apologised to everyone who had been affected by the accident.

"We will be conscientiously taking part in the investigation by authorities and will do our best to determine the cause of the accident and to take measures to prevent a repeat of such an accident," Park told reporters at the scene of the fire...

The fire was the latest industrial accident in a country where dozens of manufacturing workers lose their lives on the job each year despite repeated calls to improve workplace safety.

"I ask the ministries of labour and industry and the National Fire Agency to conduct an urgent safety inspection and, where there is concern of an accident, take immediate measures," Prime Minister Han Duck-soo said at a cabinet meeting.

Park, the Aricell CEO, said the company had fully complied with safety procedures and training, but more than half of the 103 workers at the factory, including some of those killed, were contract workers dispatched by a manpower company...

Regulatory filings showed Aricell recorded a 2.6 billion won ($1.9 million) operating loss last year on 4.8 billion won revenue, and a 14% increase in accumulated debt to 23.8 billion won. It has recorded net losses every year since its founding...

A labour ministry official told Reuters it was investigating whether Aricell complied with safety regulations and gave adequate safety training for temporary foreign workers.