An explosion at Hanwha Aerospace's Daejeon site in Oe-sam-dong, Yuseong district, Daejeon, on Sunday morning killed 5 people and injured 1.

Hanwha Aerospace and fire authorities said an explosion of unknown cause occurred on the first floor of the plant at about 10:59 a.m. There were 7 people at the site at the time. Four people died at the scene and 2 were taken to hospital with burns over their entire bodies, but 1 of the 2 critically injured later died, raising the death toll to 5. The remaining person evacuated on their own and was reported to have suffered minor injuries.

Right after the blast, 119 received about 30 calls from nearby residents and others. Fire authorities issued a Level 1 response at about 11:17 a.m. and began firefighting operations with 33 pieces of equipment and 101 personnel. They completed the initial extinguishing at about 11:49 a.m., about 50 minutes after the explosion, and continued work to put out residual flames.

Police and fire authorities suspect the accident was caused by a propellant explosion. They plan to begin a joint on-site inspection once work to extinguish residual flames is completed, to investigate the exact cause and whether safety rules were violated. Hanwha Aerospace said only that it is currently determining the circumstances of the accident.

The accident is the third explosion at the same site. A blast in May 2018 killed 5 people, and another explosion in February 2019 in a propellant molding room in Building 70 killed 3 workers. Despite 8 deaths in the two earlier accidents alone, similar incidents have recurred, prompting criticism of on-site safety management systems.