Labor ministry pledges tougher oversight at Daebul shipyard cluster after 11 deaths

South Korea's labor ministry said Tuesday its industrial safety chief had called for tighter enforcement at the Daebul industrial complex, where 11 workers, including four foreign nationals, have died in serious accidents since January 2025.

Ryu Hyun-chul, head of the ministry's industrial safety and health headquarters, made an unannounced inspection of a shipbuilding workplace at the complex in Yeongam County at 10:30 a.m., stressing the need for substantive change on the ground through corrective measures and follow-up management. He then met labor, management and civic groups from 1:30 to 2:30 p.m., where participants presented and discussed measures to prevent industrial accidents at the complex.

The complex is home to a dense cluster of shipbuilding equipment makers and ship-block manufacturers, and its concentration of heavy lifting by crane, cutting and welding, and work at height has made accidents a recurring problem. Ryu and company officials discussed what caused the recent accidents and how safety measures could be carried out on the ground. He asked that more attention be paid so that migrant workers fully understand the risks of their tasks and safe working methods.

"I feel unlimited responsibility as the head of the industrial safety and health headquarters for the 11 fatal accidents at Daebul since January last year," Ryu said, according to a separate account of his remarks.

"Industrial accidents that occur in succession are a signal that the safety management system is not working properly at the site," Ryu said. "To make a safety system that can properly manage risk factors work, central and local government, labor and management and civic groups must cooperate and communicate constantly to find solutions." He added, "I ask everyone to focus their capabilities on ending the repeated accidents at Daebul and creating substantive change for a safe workplace, starting with this meeting."

The ministry said it will strengthen patrol inspections of small workplaces and link them to its safety consulting and financial support programs, expand the hiring of shared safety managers and the use of foreign-worker safety leaders, and act strictly under the Occupational Safety and Health Act when inspections turn up violations. Ryu said the ministry would work with the resolve that "there is no compromise in the face of safety" so that Daebul can be felt to be changing into a workplace that saves workers' lives.