Nine dead after bus crushed in South Korea building collapse | Al Jazeera

At least nine people were killed and eight seriously injured in South Korea when a five storey building – which was in the process of being demolished – collapsed suddenly onto a bus, officials at a local fire station said.

The accident happened on Wednesday afternoon when the bus was stopped on the street next to the demolition site in Gwangju, some 270 kilometres (168 miles) southwest of the capital Seoul, officials at the Gwangju Fire and Safety Headquarters said.

Dramatic television footage showed the bus, which had 17 people on board, being buried in debris and smothered by a huge cloud of dust as the structure gave way.

Yang Ik-je, who runs a shop across the road from the construction site, said he ran outside, jolted by the loud noise that made him feel as if “the earth was shaking.”

“I could not see the road clearly, as if it were shrouded in thick fog,” he told Yonhap news agency. “I checked the CCTV to find out that the building collapsed onto a bus.”

The reason for the collapse was unclear, and a police investigation is under way, officials said.

--