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A 5-year-old fell into a manhole with an
open lid, and he was diagnosed with a concussion. It turned out that the building's caretaker had opened the manhole to drain and had not closed it properly.

Reporter Ji Wook Kim contributed to this report.

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Parking lot of a building in Seongnam,
Gyeonggi-do.

After getting out of the driver's seat, the mother drops off her first child and then takes care of her second.

The child gets out of the car, walks around, and suddenly disappears under the ground.

People jump at the beckoning of a panicked mother, and a man takes off his coat and goes into a manhole to rescue the child.

The accident manhole was a three-meter-deep communication manhole filled with water.

[Kwak Young-geun/Rescuer: My body was half submerged and I was holding a communication line, but he looked at me and said, 'Please save me.']

The child was diagnosed with a concussion from impact at the time of the fall.

[Mom: The white tent was just covered and there were no safeguards. I jumped thinking it was the ground, but all of a sudden the hook went off.]

It's a manhole that the child fell into, and now it's marked with such danger.



Enlarge the image


But once you open it, the manhole is so half-open that there's still room for a foot to fall out.

It is a nearby school where children often pass, but it was poorly managed.

The building manager said he opened the manhole for drainage work and did not close the lid properly.

[Building manager: He (the partner) said let's do it quickly and get it done, so I just couldn't cover this up.]

[Mother A: (The child) sees a manhole cover or something like that, and he avoids it. The second one is the same thing, and I think it was too much trauma for my whole family.]

Police arrested the building manager on suspicion of manslaughter at work.

(Video Interview: Lee Sang-hak, Video Editing: Won Hyung-hee)

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Reporter Kim Ji-wook who covered
this story.

Q. What is the status of manholes in Seoul?

[Reporter Kim Ji-wook: Currently, there are more than 62,73 manholes in Seoul alone. Their uses and management entities are different. If you look at the table together, water supply and sewerage manholes, which account for about 20% of the total, are managed by local governments. On the other hand, manholes such as electricity, communication, and gas are managed by companies such as KEPCO, and there are about <> management entities. In addition, it is a communication manhole, but if it is installed on private land like this time, it will be owned and managed by individuals. So individuals can open it and do the necessary work, Safety rules are not followed as well as manholes under public control, which leads to accidents like this.]

Q. Manhole management entity ambiguous, what is the solution?

[Reporter Kim Ji-wook: Yes, that's right. In the case of manholes managed in the public domain, the responsibility of the relevant management entity such as local governments or companies is clear, but if it is a manhole installed on private land like this one, it can lead to a complicated situation because the owner is separate and the manager is separate. Therefore, it is pointed out that a management manual is also needed for such blind spots.]

[Attorney Jung: It seems that an alternative is needed, such as ensuring that the owner is notified if a manhole is to be opened, so that he can respond to the occurrence of a problem, or imposing responsibilities such as safety management training on those who are expected to work on opening the manhole.]

[Reporter Jiwook Kim: One option would be to allow individual workers to report the work of the installation agency if they open a manhole.]

(Video Interview: Lee Sang-hak, Video Editing: Won Hyung-hee)