Vietnam to bring home bodies of S Korea factory explosion victims

By Xuan Hoa, Nguyen Quy   November 12, 2018 | 05:02 pm PT
Vietnam to bring home bodies of S Korea factory explosion victims
The explosion at a chemical plant in South Korea kills two Vietnamese workers. Photo by Shuttershock/Dale Stagg
The government will support families bringing back the bodies of two Vietnamese workers killed in a factory explosion in South Korea.

Officials said they were working with South Korean counterparts to facilitate the process.

The workers were killed Saturday morning in an explosion at a chemical plant run by the Foosung Precision Industry Co. in Wonju City, around 130 kilometers (80 miles) to the east of Seoul.

The dead were identified as Chu Van Duong, 31, and Tang Van Khanh, 28, both from the northern mountainous province of Lang Son.

The two other injured workers, also Vietnamese, have suffered extensive burns and are being treated at a local hospital. The injured workers are Do Quoc Hung, 31, and 21-year-old Vuong Dac Khai.

Initial findings are that the blast was caused by a short circuit that happened while workers were welding a tank filled with chemicals.

On Sunday, the Overseas Labor Center under Vietnam’s labor ministry informed the victims’ families and helped them complete the paperwork to move to South Korea and bring the bodies of their relatives back home.

The center is also working closely with Korean authorities to deal with labor policies for the deceased workers as they died on duty. 

All four Vietnamese workers were legal laborers working in South Korea under the country’s Employment Permit System which was launched in 2013, allowing 15 countries including Vietnam to send their workers to South Korea.

Earlier, the Foreign Ministry has asked the Vietnamese Embassy in South Korea to follow up on the incident and take necessary measures to protect the legitimate rights and interests of the Vietnamese workers.

South Korea is one of the largest labor export markets for Vietnam. There were over 45,398 Vietnamese migrant workers in South Korea by the end of June 2018.

The majority of them were registered under the Employment Permit System, according to official labor reports.

 
 
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