Chapter 33. Apartment Collapse (1)
Sergeant Park Junhyeong’s suicide was quietly buried.
Just as the media was beginning to take an interest, a far bigger accident happened.
That evening, an apartment building under construction in Seoul collapsed.
Three foreign workers were killed, and three others were trapped under the rubble and listed as missing.
The moment the wire service pushed out the first bulletin, the newsroom went into emergency mode.
Harok had just finished his call with Hong Yunjung and was wrapping up a movie preview article.
Park Mungyu immediately called Kim Seongjun.
“Yeah, it’s on TV right now. Uh-huh... You already know? Okay... So who are you sending?... Got it.”
He was speaking so loudly that even the Culture Department could hear him.
Harok’s body started itching without him realizing it.
Accident reporting had always been one of his specialties.
From the AirAsia plane crash at San Francisco Airport to the Mona Resort collapse in Gangwon Province.
Every time a major disaster happened, Harok had spent days staking out the scene.
Those memories came rushing back.
When a major accident happened, reporters had to run straight to the scene.
But just as important was having someone inside the newsroom who could keep the big picture in view and organize the angles.
The scene was important, but once you got there, your field of view naturally narrowed.
The Chief needed to gather voices from the scene, combine them with outside information, and turn all of it into usable story ideas.
Who am I worrying about?
Social Affairs will handle it just fine.
Today was the Culture Department’s company dinner.
If Harok were still in Social Affairs, the gathering obviously would have been canceled because of the accident.
But Culture felt like another world entirely.
Harok couldn’t decide whether that was a good thing or a bad thing.
We’re still reporters.
Is it really okay to live this disconnected from what’s happening in the world?
No.
That wasn’t the right mindset.
He was a culture reporter now.
He needed to get rid of his social-affairs instincts as quickly as possible.
Besides, tonight’s dinner was supposed to celebrate his transfer.
[Yubin: Senior, are you there?]
[Harok: Yeah.]
[Yubin: I’m heading to cover the collapse.]
[Harok: Really?]
[Yubin: Can you talk for a minute?]
[Harok: Yeah.]
Ring, ring.
His phone rang immediately.
“Congratulations.”
“How is this something to congratulate me for?”
“Covering a major disaster will help you a lot in your future career.”
Harok encouraged her.
“Really?”
“There are two kinds of reporters. Those who’ve covered a major disaster, and those who haven’t.”
“I’ve never heard anyone say that before.”
“There hasn’t been a major accident since you joined.”
“Ah. That’s true.”
“The reason old reporters had such strong fundamentals was because they covered so many major disasters.”
Harok launched into a speech as though he were still her vice-chief.
“I guess there were a lot more accidents in the old days.”
“Seongsu Bridge collapse, Sampoong Department Store collapse, Seohae Ferry disaster, Ahyeon-dong gas explosion, plane crashes... There were too many to count. Ironically, all those disasters dramatically improved the reporting skills of journalists from that era.”
“Aren’t all of those ancient history?”
“The reporters who were running around on the ground back then are the desks now.”
“Senior, you weren’t even a reporter back then. How do you know so much about it?”
Because I’ve heard those stories until my ears bled.
Whenever the old guys started drinking, they could spend the entire night talking about those days.
Lee Munhong’s favorite lifelong drinking story was how he had personally measured the broken section of Seongsu Bridge with a tape measure after the collapse.
Six years earlier.
A heavily drunk Lee Munhong had gathered the trainees around and started bragging.
“A senior told me to go measure the broken section.”
“You actually did it?”
“When a senior tells you to do something, you do it.”
“Weren’t you scared?”
“My senior was scarier.”
According to Lee Munhong, he had tied a firefighter’s rope around his waist and gone all the way to the broken edge himself to take the measurement.
“The police didn’t stop you?”
“Back then, reporters could pretty much go anywhere at accident scenes. We contaminated scenes all the time.”
“That’s insane.”
“The classic example is the Odaeyang case. It was a mass suicide, and reporters trampled all over the scene and completely ruined it.”
Stories from those days never ended.
Whenever seniors excitedly talked about the old days, junior reporters all thought the same thing.
You people had it so easy back then.
So how did you manage to leave us such a shitty reporting environment?
“So what should I investigate first?”
“You still think I’m your first-line senior? You should figure that out yourself now.”
“Oh my, Senior. Why would you say something so cold? Once a first-line senior, always a first-line senior.”
“Fine, fine.”
Harok turned away from the table and stepped outside so he could smoke while talking.
“First, find yourself a police source. Someone who can give you detailed information about the accident faster than anyone else.”
“Someone who’ll tell me first?”
“Obviously.”
“Is that even possible?”
“That depends on your skills. You’ve gotten documents from conscripted police officers before. Surely you can manage this.”
“I’ll try.”
“Start by checking whether they followed safety procedures. And since all the people who died were foreign workers, see whether there were communication problems too.”
“...”
“You listening? Why aren’t you answering?”
“I’m recording this.”
She’s really something else.
Now she was recording his phone lectures too.
Harok clicked his tongue.
He couldn’t have imagined doing something like this when he was a trainee.
“And interview the families. There may be some heartbreaking story. They came all the way to Korea and died working on a construction site.”
“Okay...”
Harok tried to remember what he knew from his previous life.
At this point in time, he had been suffering badly because of the garbage dumpling scandal.
Because of that, he barely remembered anything about this apartment collapse.
If he had paid more attention to the case back then, maybe he could help Yubin now.
Still, whether it was an apartment or factory construction site, most fatal accidents during construction came down to violations of safety rules.
Honestly, saying it was nearly one hundred percent wouldn’t be much of an exaggeration.
Korea was on the verge of entering the ranks of developed countries, yet its industrial workplaces still looked like the Third World.
Workers often ignored even the most basic requirements, such as wearing safety harnesses and helmets.
“With accidents like this, nine times out of ten, safety rules weren’t followed. If people just obeyed basic safety procedures, backward accidents like this wouldn’t happen.”
“How do you know?”
“That’s just how it is. Safety complacency is always the cause.”
