Korean dies on tour of Georgian church

One South Korean tourist was killed and another was injured after they were hit by a falling steel structure while on a trip to the country of Georgia, the Korean Foreign Ministry said Wednesday.

The accident happened at about 6:30 p.m. on Monday, when the construction structure fell off the wall of a church and crashed on top of a 67-year-old man and his tour guide in the capital city of Tbilisi, the ministry said.

The surviving tour guide suffered injuries, the ministry said, without giving more details.

A Chinese woman from a different tour group was also killed in the collapse, local media reported.

The structure appears to have come off the wall due to a sudden gust of wind, the ministry said. The church was under renovation.

The deceased Korean victim was part of a 22-member package tour traveling in Georgia. Most of the other tourists were inside the church at the time of the collapse.

The ministry said it is providing the travel agency that organized the tour with necessary assistance, including consular efforts for the procedure to transport the victim’s body, as well as contacting his family.

Yonhap