A construction company official whose actions led to 14 deaths when an underpass flooded in 2023 will serve six years in prison for negligent homicide after the nation’s top court upheld the sentence. 

The Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld a lower court’s sentence in connection with the disaster in Osong, North Chungcheong Province, which resulted from poor oversight in the construction of a river embankment.

The site manager was found guilty of illegally demolishing the Miho River embankment while carrying out a road expansion project in Osong and poorly building a temporary embankment just before heavy rainfall caused the fatal flooding.

The person was initially sentenced to seven years and six months in prison, the maximum sentence, but an appellate court lowered it to six years.

The appellate court ruled that it was difficult to see the accident as solely the defendant’s fault.