Worker Rescued from Collapsed Subway Construction Site in South Korea

Rescue officials conduct search operations for the second day, for a missing person in a subway construction site collapse in Gwangmyeong, just south of Seoul, South Korea, 12 April 2025. (EPA/Yonhap)
Rescue officials conduct search operations for the second day, for a missing person in a subway construction site collapse in Gwangmyeong, just south of Seoul, South Korea, 12 April 2025. (EPA/Yonhap)
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Worker Rescued from Collapsed Subway Construction Site in South Korea

Rescue officials conduct search operations for the second day, for a missing person in a subway construction site collapse in Gwangmyeong, just south of Seoul, South Korea, 12 April 2025. (EPA/Yonhap)
Rescue officials conduct search operations for the second day, for a missing person in a subway construction site collapse in Gwangmyeong, just south of Seoul, South Korea, 12 April 2025. (EPA/Yonhap)

South Korean rescue workers on Saturday pulled a man from a collapsed subway construction site near the capital of Seoul and continued searching for another believed to be trapped inside.

Im Gwang-sik, an official with Gwangmyeong city’s fire department, said the survivor was trapped about 30 meters (98 feet) underground in the rubble for approximately 13 hours, and was conscious when found and taken to a nearby hospital.

Gwangmyeong city authorities had earlier withdrawn workers from the construction site and halted traffic in the area after receiving reports that a ventilation shaft was at risk of collapsing.

Authorities were deploying dozens of rescue workers and vehicles and three cranes to search for the other worker who remains unaccounted for.



Weight-Loss Drugs May Lower Cancer Risk in People with Diabetes, a Study Suggests 

A box of Ozempic made by Novo Nordisk is seen at a pharmacy in London, Britain March 8, 2024. (Reuters) 
A box of Ozempic made by Novo Nordisk is seen at a pharmacy in London, Britain March 8, 2024. (Reuters) 
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Weight-Loss Drugs May Lower Cancer Risk in People with Diabetes, a Study Suggests 

A box of Ozempic made by Novo Nordisk is seen at a pharmacy in London, Britain March 8, 2024. (Reuters) 
A box of Ozempic made by Novo Nordisk is seen at a pharmacy in London, Britain March 8, 2024. (Reuters) 

Excess body weight can raise the risk of certain cancers, leading researchers to wonder whether blockbuster drugs like Wegovy, Ozempic and Zepbound could play a role in cancer prevention.

Now, a study of 170,000 patient records suggests there's a slightly lower risk of obesity-related cancers in US adults with diabetes who took these popular medications compared to those who took another class of diabetes drug not associated with weight loss.

This type of study can't prove cause and effect, but the findings hint at a connection worth exploring. More than a dozen cancers are associated with obesity.

“This is a call to scientists and clinical investigators to do more work in this area to really prove or disprove this,” said Dr. Ernest Hawk of MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, who was not involved in the study.

The findings were released Thursday by the American Society of Clinical Oncology and will be discussed at its annual meeting in Chicago. The study, funded by the National Institutes of Health, was led by Lucas Mavromatis, a medical student at New York University’s Grossman School of Medicine.

“Chronic disease and chronic disease prevention are some of my passions,” said Mavromatis, a former research fellow with an NIH training program.

GLP-1 receptor agonists are injections used to treat diabetes, and some are also approved to treat obesity. They work by mimicking hormones in the gut and the brain to regulate appetite and feelings of fullness. They don't work for everyone and can produce side effects that include nausea and stomach pain.

In the study, researchers analyzed data from 43 US health systems to compare two groups: people with obesity and diabetes who took GLP-1 drugs and other people with the same conditions who took diabetes drugs like sitagliptin. The two groups were equal in size and matched for other characteristics.

After four years, those who took GLP-1 drugs had a 7% lower risk of developing an obesity-related cancer and an 8% lower risk of death from any cause compared to those who took the other type of diabetes drug. There were 2,501 new cases of obesity-related cancer in the GLP-1 group compared to 2,671 cases in the other group.

The effect was evident in women, but not statistically significant in men. The study couldn't explain that difference, but Mavromatis noted that differences in blood drug concentration, weight loss, metabolism or hormones could be at play.