All Koreans must have felt heartbroken at the pictures of the bodies of eight Korean engineers being recovered with those of six other people from the site of a helicopter crash in the mountains in southern Peru on Sunday.

They were flying back to a Peruvian town after aerial surveillance of a possible site for a hydroelectric project when their helicopter apparently crashed at about 4,950 meters above sea level due to bad weather conditions Wednesday.

Most of the eight Koreans aboard the ill-fated helicopter were top-level veteran engineers with long careers in water resources development.

To lose such skilled experts brings a painful loss to the country as well as the four companies they worked for.

Their deaths also remind ordinary Koreans of how much the nation owes its economic prosperity to corporate workers pioneering overseas markets against all kinds of adversity.

The sense of mourning for them appears more somber as the country is struggling through economic difficulties amid the deepening global slowdown.

They had been striving to obtain a Peruvian contract worth $1.61 billion, which they hoped would open the way for massive water resources development projects in the Andes.

One of them, a 50-year-old engineer at the Korea Water Resources Corporation, was described by his colleagues as being very excited about the prospect of winning South American deals before leaving for Peru.

They deserve tributes from the bottom of our hearts and our prayers are with their bereaved families.

Owning to the strenuous efforts of its workers, Korea has established a reputation in construction and civil engineering since it began taking up projects in Southeast Asian and Middle Eastern countries in the 1970s.

In the process, Korean engineers have often been exposed to dangers stemming from unstable security situations and hazardous working conditions, even risking their lives in some cases.

Safety concerns will continue to be raised in many areas where Korean companies are engaged in construction and resources development.

Though it appears to have been caused by sudden weather changes, the helicopter crash should serve as an occasion to enhance safety awareness to prevent similar tragedies from occurring in the future. Clear and specific manuals on safety need to be drawn up to provide guidelines in high-risk situations.

The sense of loss should eventually give way to a sense of mission to carry out what the deceased engineers had been working on.

An executive at Samsung C&T Corporation, which lost three of its employees, pledged to make their efforts come to fruition when he left for Peru last Sunday. That’s certainly what they would have wanted their colleagues to do for them.