Safety inspections at vulnerable sites find 179 violations across building, road and river projects
Gyeonggi Province announced Monday that its Citizen Construction Supervision Corps — a panel of experts in safety management, civil engineering and architecture — has completed safety inspections at vulnerable construction sites, including riverside locations, ahead of the main rainy season.
The Citizen Construction Supervision Corps, first introduced in Gyeonggi Province in 2019 as the first of its kind nationwide, is a system in which outside specialists conduct quality and safety checks on public construction projects commissioned by the provincial government and its affiliated agencies. Inspectors visit public construction sites covering roads, railways, rivers and buildings, with the goals of preventing safety accidents, curbing shoddy construction and improving overall quality.
Of the 22 public construction sites scheduled for inspection this year, the corps completed on-site checks at 10 locations in the building, road and river sectors — including new construction, road widening and flood-prone area improvement projects — that required inspection before the rainy season.
The inspections turned up 179 violations in total. The most common issue was inadequate progress management ahead of the rainy season, cited in 20 cases, followed by insufficient quality-testing plan management in 10 cases and failure to review earth-retaining wall stability in seven cases. Of the 179 violations, 134 have already been addressed, with the remainder to be resolved as soon as site conditions allow.
The on-site inspections covered four areas: safety management for workers and pedestrians at construction sites; installation of temporary structures such as scaffolding and formwork, as well as safety facilities including guardrails and warning signs; construction quality for concrete work, waterproofing and rebar assembly; and the installation and management of measuring instruments. Inspectors flagged hazards that are easily overlooked at construction sites and urged project personnel to tighten on-site management and prevent safety accidents.
Gyeonggi Province said it will continue corps inspections with a focus on vulnerable sites and will carry out the remaining planned inspections without delay.
"We have worked hard alongside the Citizen Construction Supervision Corps to thoroughly check for risk factors ahead of the main rainy season," said Bae Seong-ho, director of the Gyeonggi Province Construction Bureau. "We will continue to actively support the corps' activities so that we can create construction sites where residents can feel safe."
pjh@heraldcorp.com
