Seven arrest warrants filed in connection to Osong flood disaster

Rescue personnel search for people who went missing in a flooded underpass in Osong-eup of Cheongju, North Chungcheong, on July 16. [YONHAP]

Prosecutors on Thursday filed arrest warrants against seven individuals for alleged negligence that they said contributed to 25 casualties in a flash flood that overcame an underpass in Osong-eup in Cheongju, North Chungcheong, in July.

The subjects of the arrest warrants filed by the Cheongju District Prosecutors’ Office include two construction company officials accused of demolishing an embankment along the Miho Stream and building a temporary levee without authorization, two construction site overseers, and three civil servants.

Seventeen vehicles, including two trucks and a bus, were trapped in the underpass during a flash flood on July 15, which followed the collapse of the temporary levee along the Miho Stream amid heavy rain.

Fourteen people drowned in the flooded underpass, while 11 were injured.

According to an investigation by the Office of Government Policy Coordination, the flash flood resulted from the “unauthorized demolition of an embankment under a bridge over the Miho Stream and its replacement by a structurally unsound, temporary levee.”

The investigation also found that local government officials had failed in their oversight of construction along the stream.

To date, the Cheongju District Prosecutors’ Office has investigated over 200 officials from the North Chungcheong provincial government and the Cheongju municipal government in relation to the disaster.

BY MICHAEL LEE [lee.junhyuk@joongang.co.kr]