In May this year, two workers at Samsung’s R&D complex in Giheung, South Korea, woking on chip production line, reported that their fingers swell and red spots appeared on them while working. Upon checking them up, it was found that they faced those issues due to excess X-ray exposure at the work place. Reportedly, their radiation exposure levels were as 94 sieverts and 28 sieverts, which is much higher than the safety threshold of 0.5 sieverts.
Following the incident, the country’s Nuclear Safety and Security Commission (NSSC) launched an investigation into matter to determine the cause of the incident. Well, the agency has completed the investigation and presented the findings at its regular meeting on Thursday. While the findings are against Samsung, the company might easily get away with it.
Radiation exposure was caused due to Samsung's mismanagement
According to NSSC, three out of eight radiation safety systems were not functioning correctly as they were deliberately tampered, which led to the incident. In other words, it was caused by Samsung’s mismanagement. Unfortunately, the agency was not able to determine when were those systems tampered or who was responsible for doing so.
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If this incident occurred accidentally, for example, due to equipment failure, it would have been a big issue, raising concerns over Samsung’s safety protocols and management. However, it occurred because someone deliberately tampered with the safety equipment, which is a much more serious (and worse), and raises even more eyebrows at Samsung.
NSSC is letting go Samsung with only $7,900 fine
Despite that, NSSC is imposing a fine of only KRW 10.5 million on Samsung Electronics, which equates to around USD 7,900. In our opinion, that’s a very minimal fine for the seriousness of the issue. Reportedly, Samsung may request a police investigation into the mismanagement of safety equipment. We hope that the company takes major actions to bring culprits to justice and prevent such serious incidents from happening in the future.
