In yet another tragic reminder of our society’s apparent lack of safety awareness, 16 people fell to their deaths at an outdoor concert in Pangyo, Gyeonggi Province, Friday night.

About 30 people are thought to have been standing on a ventilator grille watching a popular girl group perform when the grille gave in and people fell 20 meters into an underground parking lot. Eleven people were also injured, are several are in critical condition.

Photos taken before the accident show the ventilator grille buckling under the weight of the spectators standing on it to get a better view of the stage. According to people who were at the concert, the emcee of the show asked the spectators on the ventilator to step down but there were no security personnel around to prevent them from standing on it.

While Gyeonggi Province, Seongnam City and Edaily TV, the organizer of the outdoor concert, are apparently engaged in a blame game over who was responsible for what happened at the free concert which drew some 700 people, it is clear that this was yet another man-made disaster that could have been prevented.

Because the concert took place at a venue that is not subject to approval from the fire department ― it was held at a plaza in front of a shopping mall ― the fire department did not conduct a safety check although the Gyeonggi Institute of Science and Technology Promotion requested one. While the regulations may be on the fire department’s side, the relevant authorities will find it hard to escape moral responsibility for the failure to make a safety review even after one was requested.

Questions are being raised about the safety of the ventilator grille but the fact is that there are no regulations concerning ventilation grilles. There are no regulations regarding warning signs or fences around ventilation grilles, either. In fact, pedestrians routinely walk on such grilles without questioning the safety of doing so.

While the government should work harder to make sure that appropriate safety regulations are in place, the reality is that there will always be some issues that escape scrutiny. And even if regulations are put in place, their effective enforcement is another matter. Meanwhile, in the absence of regulations concerning many potentially hazardous situations, it is up to the individual to make educated choices. This starts with being aware of our surroundings and using common sense. Such training should begin at a young age. It also starts with questioning our attitude toward accidents: the unwarranted belief that “it won’t happen to me.”