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Gwangmyeong city authorities had earlier withdrawn workers from the construction site and halted traffic in the area after receiving reports that a ventilation shaft was at risk of collapsing.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



Hundreds of Firefighters Battling Wildfire in Southern France

An Airbus H125 helicopter drops water over a wildfire in Saint-Julien Les Martigues, northwest of Marseille in southern France on July 18, 2025. (Photo by Christophe SIMON / AFP)
An Airbus H125 helicopter drops water over a wildfire in Saint-Julien Les Martigues, northwest of Marseille in southern France on July 18, 2025. (Photo by Christophe SIMON / AFP)
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Hundreds of Firefighters Battling Wildfire in Southern France

An Airbus H125 helicopter drops water over a wildfire in Saint-Julien Les Martigues, northwest of Marseille in southern France on July 18, 2025. (Photo by Christophe SIMON / AFP)
An Airbus H125 helicopter drops water over a wildfire in Saint-Julien Les Martigues, northwest of Marseille in southern France on July 18, 2025. (Photo by Christophe SIMON / AFP)

Nearly 1,000 firefighters and helicopters battled a wildfire about 40 kilometers (25 miles) northwest of France's second-largest city Marseille on Friday, but officials said lower temperatures and increased humidity had improved the situation.

The 240-hectare (593 acres) wildfire flared up a week after a separate conflagration reached the northwestern outskirts of Marseille, forcing people to evacuate or into lockdown and temporarily shuttering the area's airport.

Pierre Bepoix, the colonel of rescue operations and deputy director for the area's firefighters, said 150 people had been evacuated, but firefighters had managed to save 150 homes and portions of the area's forests.

"It was a fire that swept through relatively dense vegetation ... which made our work particularly complicated," Bepoix told Reuters. "Obviously, priority was given to the preservation and protection of these homes and the lives that could be in these buildings."

Local officials said in a statement that 120 homes had been threatened by the fire, adding that it was not possible yet to identify any possible damage to them, and that two firefighters had been injured.

Meanwhile in Spain, a wildfire that broke out on Thursday evening in the central Toledo province and could be seen from downtown Madrid, ravaged 3,200 hectares of woodland.

Regional emergency services said early on Friday firefighters had secured the perimeter, though there were concerns over strong winds and high temperatures forecast throughout the day.