‘Workplaces of death’: South Korean president’s childhood fuels crackdown

South Korean Kim Yong-ho thought he would die within seconds after a 200kg (441lbs) industrial press at a Hyundai Steel plant sprang to life during maintenance and crushed his legs and back.

It was 2019, and Kim said he thought the heavy machinery around him had been switched off as he made repairs.

“I was flattened like a squashed frog in a roadkill,” he said. “I couldn’t breathe for a few seconds.”

A quick-thinking colleague saved his life by alerting the machine’s operator, said Kim, now 39.

Haunted by his own injuries as a child labourer, South Korean President Lee Jae-myung – who crushed his finger and arm making rubber and later baseball gloves – has vowed to lower the country’s above-average rate of industrial accidents in what he calls “workplaces of death”.

So far, his administration has raided companies, increased spending to prevent industrial accidents and expanded workplace protections to subcontracted labourers, among other initiatives.