Overview
- A blast and fire in a cleaning room at Hanwha Aerospace’s Daejeon facility on Monday killed five workers and injured two others, one of whom remains in critical condition.
- Police, the fire service, the National Forensic Service and labor and safety agencies launched a joint on-site inspection to find where the blaze began and whether flammable propellant residues were present.
- Company officials and early on-site findings say the explosion likely occurred during cleaning of propellant powder from tools, and investigators reported the cleaning room had no indoor sprinklers or CCTV.
- The Daejeon Regional Employment and Labor Office ordered a partial suspension of the plant’s operations and Hanwha said it will cooperate while safety checks and mandatory training take place before any resumption.
- Authorities confirmed the victims’ identities by DNA and will return the bodies to families, and the accident has reopened scrutiny of the site after fatal propellant-related explosions there in 2018 and 2019.