An explosion at a Hanwha Aerospace factory in Daejeon, a city roughly 150 kilometres south of Seoul in central South Korea, killed five people and injured two others on Monday morning, authorities confirmed. Fire officials received the alarm at around 10:59 a.m. local time, and approximately 100 emergency personnel were deployed to the site. The blaze was fully extinguished just after 1:00 p.m. The two survivors, one of whom suffered severe burns across much of his body, managed to escape the facility on their own.
The explosion is believed to have occurred on the first floor of the factory while workers were carrying out cleaning work involving explosive materials, according to fire and police officials. Identifying the victims proved difficult: health officials noted that the bodies were severely damaged in the blast. Investigators also faced an unusual obstacle — the factory's layout is classified under South Korean national security laws, limiting the information authorities could access during the emergency response.
Hanwha Aerospace is one of South Korea's foremost defence manufacturers, producing artillery systems, tactical surface-to-surface weapons, large propulsion engines, and components related to space systems. The Daejeon facility in particular focuses on research and development in advanced weapons technologies and rocket propellants. A company representative said the full extent of the damage had not yet been determined and that an internal investigation was under way.
Monday's tragedy is not the first at the site. A 2018 explosion at the same factory killed five workers, and another blast the following year claimed three more lives, raising persistent questions about safety standards at defence industrial facilities.
President Lee Jae Myung ordered a full mobilisation of available government resources for rescue operations and called for a thorough investigation into the cause, as well as measures to prevent similar incidents in the future. Prime Minister Kim Min-seok echoed those instructions, directing the interior ministry, fire agency, police, and the Daejeon city government to deploy all available personnel and equipment. The labour ministry, science ministry, and aerospace agency were also instructed to cooperate fully with rescue and investigative efforts.