SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Three people were killed and three others were injured Tuesday when a decades-old overpass undergoing demolition partially collapsed in the South Korean capital, Seoul, fire officials said.
The accident occurred during a safety inspection after workers halted demolition work upon noticing that a part of the structure had slightly sunk while concrete slabs were being cut, said Lee Jong-woon, an official at Seoul’s Seodaemun District Fire Station. The victims were crushed by debris and other wreckage after a section of a bridge deck suddenly collapsed, officials said.
Police and emergency officials sealed off traffic around the site, where twisted steel beams and shattered slabs of concrete hung precariously from the edge of the overpass.
Some debris also fell on a nearby railway, forcing the Korea Railroad Corp. to suspend some operations to Seoul Station.
Built in 1966, the overpass had been undergoing demolition since August last year over safety concerns.
South Korean firefighters and rescue team try to search at the overpass collapsed while it was being dismantled in Seoul, South Korea, Tuesday, May 26, 2026. (Lee Ji-eun/Yonhap via AP)
South Korean firefighters and rescue team try to search at the overpass collapsed while it was being dismantled in Seoul, South Korea, Tuesday, May 26, 2026. (Choi Jae-gu/Yonhap via AP)
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea launched a close-range ballistic missile and other weapons toward the sea on Tuesday, South Korea's military said, days after the leaders of Russia and China voiced their opposition to Western pressures on North Korea.
The missile fired from Jongju, a city near the North's west coast, flew about 80 kilometers (50 miles), South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said. North Korea launched other kinds of projectiles, it said, but didn't elaborate.
South Korean media, citing the military, reported the other weapons systems mobilized included multiple rocket launch systems. The reports said that the simultaneous launches of different kinds of weapons were likely meant to test an ability to evade South Korean and U.S. defenses.
South Korea's military said that it closely monitors activities in North Korea. It said that South Korea, with a solid alliance with the U.S., maintains a readiness to repel any provocations by North Korea.
It was North Korea's first weapons launch event since April 19, when the country fired multiple short-range missiles in what state-media described as a demonstration of cluster bomb warheads.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has focused on modernizing his nuclear and missile arsenals since his nuclear diplomacy with U.S. President Donald Trump collapsed in 2019. In recent years, Kim has expanded ties with Russia by sending troops and conventional arms to support its war efforts against Ukraine. Kim has also pushed to cement cooperation with China, North Korea's economic pipeline.
In their summit in Beijing last week, Russian President Vladmir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping expressed their opposition to “foreign policy isolation, economic sanctions, military pressure and other methods of creating threats to the security” of North Korea, according to a statement from the the Kremlin.
Russia and China, both veto-wielding members of the U.N. Security Council, have previously frustrated the U.S. and others' efforts to toughen international sanctions on North Korea, despite its banned weapons tests.
Trump has repeatedly expressed his desire to resume talks with Kim, but Pyongyang has responded that Washington must first drop demands for the North’s nuclear disarmament as a precondition for talks.
Kim has taken an increasingly hard-line stance toward South Korea, calling it his country’s most hostile enemy and taking steps to terminate all ties with its neighbor. In a meeting with military commanders last week, Kim discussed efforts to strengthen military units along the border with South Korea in line with a state objective to turn the border line into “an impregnable fortress,” according to state media.
On Tuesday, South Korean President Lee Jae Myung called for stronger efforts to advance the country’s military. In televised remarks during a regular Cabinet meeting, he emphasized artificial intelligence and drone capabilities, and the potential acquisition of a nuclear-powered submarine, an issue that has been part of his diplomacy with Washington.
Lee, a liberal who espouses improved ties with North Korea, didn't specifically comment on the threats posed by the North. But he stressed the importance of South Korea demonstrating the “resolve to take responsibility for and protect our own security ourselves,” saying such a posture would also strengthen the country’s alliance with the United States.
Elise Morton contributed to this report from London.
A TV screen shows a reporting of North Korea's unidentified projectile, with file footage during a news program at the Seoul Railway Station in Seoul, South Korea, Tuesday, May 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)
A TV screen shows a reporting of North Korea's unidentified projectile with file footage during a news program at the Seoul Railway Station in Seoul, South Korea, Tuesday, May 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)
