After losing two major employers the city of Gunsan is facing a population flight as workers look for jobs elsewhere in the country:
A shopping district in Gunsan, North Jeolla Province is deserted on Tuesday
The closure of GM Korea’s plant in Gunsan on Thursday is emptying the southwestern industrial town of its population in a process familiar from GM headquarters’ home of Detroit.
The Gunsan plant employed around 2,000 workers, but only 15 to 20 remain to look after the sprawling 1.2 million sq.m complex.
Song Yong-sun (55) came to work on Wednesday. “I’ve worked here for the last 23 years since the plant was built back in 1995,” he said. “I thought I’d retire at this factory, but now I’m at a loss.”
It is not the only closure turning the city in North Jeolla Province into a ghost town. Last July, a Hyundai Heavy Industries shipyard shut its doors after failing to win new orders. [Chosun Ilbo]
You can read more at the link, but could you imagine what would happen to Gunsan if the US airbase outside the city ever closed as well?
It seems to me having your daughter go missing under your care is worse than having an accidental death due to choking:
Police on Friday found the body of a 5-year-old missing girl on a hillside in the western coastal city of Gunsan following her father’s confession to having disposed of it, officials said.
The Jeonbuk Provincial Police Agency said that at 4:45 a.m., the body of Koh Jun-hee was discovered wrapped in a towel under a tree on the hillside, about a 50-minute drive from where she stayed. She was reported to have gone missing a little over three weeks ago.
The investigation into the case gained traction as her 36-year-old father, who was put under emergency arrest, confessed Thursday to having dumped her body on a hill in the city 270 kilometers south of Seoul in April.
Based on the father’s statement, police presume that Koh died because she choked on food. Her father has said that he concealed her death for fear that it would cause trouble in his divorce settlement with her birth mother.
Police plan to examine her body to find out the exact cause of death, officials said. [Korea Times]
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