▲ Workers clean a subway train at a vehicle maintenance office in Seoul in this file photo taken Nov. 8, 2023. (Yonhap)

Seoul Metro workers-cancer

Seoul mayor calls for thorough probe into collective blood cancer diagnosis among Seoul Metro employees

SEOUL, June 5 (Yonhap) -- Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon on Wednesday ordered a thorough investigation into the collective development of blood cancer among Seoul Metro employees and to come up with preventive measures, officials said.

According to the labor union of Seoul Metro, the operator of subway lines 1-8, eight employees were diagnosed with blood cancer and three of them have died.

All of them were involved in train maintenance work, and suspicions have arisen that the development of hematologic malignancy, or blood cancer, has something to do with their use of organic solvent during maintenance work.

The diagnosis sheet of one of the workers, whose illness was recognized as an industrial accident, said there is a "reasonable causal relationship" between injury and work, as continued exposure to various toxic chemicals during their painting and cleaning duties could have led to the illness.

Mayor Oh ordered the subway operator to look into the working conditions and come up with preventive measures. Oh also ordered an epidemiological investigation to be conducted into the case and to form a task force to carry out the probe, officials said.

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