A woman in her 40s was killed when a transformer radiator fell from a factory building in Changwon, South Gyeongsang Province, as she was leaving work, police said Sunday.
The radiator, weighing about 60 kilograms, fell about 4 meters from an exterior emergency staircase at a mobile phone parts factory in the city’s Masanhoewon-gu district at about 12:12 p.m. Saturday, according to Masan Dongbu Police Station.
The woman, an employee at the factory, was taken to a hospital with serious injuries but later died. She had finished an overtime shift and was heading home when she was struck, police said.
An outside contractor hired by the factory was removing the unused transformer from an electrical room on the building’s second floor at the time.
Police believe a wheel of the handcart carrying the radiator caught on a raised edge of the exterior staircase as a worker moved it, causing the radiator to tumble out and fall to the ground.
Police are investigating the circumstances of the accident, including whether adequate safety measures were in place during the removal work.
hnpark@heraldcorp.com