The Korea Herald

지나쌤

Supermarket parking lot roof partially collapses in Songdo

By Jung Min-kyung

Published : Aug. 24, 2023 - 17:31

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A photo of a pile of debris in the underground parking lot at Homeplus' Songdo branch in Incheon on Wednesday, uploaded by an anonymous user to an online forum. A photo of a pile of debris in the underground parking lot at Homeplus' Songdo branch in Incheon on Wednesday, uploaded by an anonymous user to an online forum.

The concrete roof of a supermarket parking lot partially collapsed in Songdo, Incheon, though no casualties were reported, officials said Thursday.

The roof of the underground parking lot at Homeplus’ Songdo branch collapsed at around 8:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Incheon city government officials and the local discount retail chain said.

There were no casualties reported as of Thursday, but some have claimed property damage involving their vehicles parked near the damaged site at the time of the incident.

One anonymous user uploaded a photo of the damaged site and wrote, “the store provided no explanations nor announcements that the floor had collapsed.” The user added that the employees cleaning up the site didn’t provide any explanation either but rather were silently removing the debris.

This marks the second time the parking lot at Homeplus’ Songdo branch has partially collapsed.

The parking lot, which takes up the entire second floor below ground and is located right below the food corner, reported a partial roof collapse in April 2019. No casualties were reported at the time as well, though one vehicle parked below the collapsed roof was damaged.

Incheon city government authorities ordered Homeplus to shut down the parking lot and run a thorough safety check of the site. They also filed a complaint against the construction firm and supervisors with the police, accusing them of not following the reinforcement instructions stated in the original floor plan.