A court has issued its first ruling that it is difficult to establish criminal liability for officials involved in a geothermal power project linked to the 2017 magnitude-5.4 "Pohang earthquake."
The court rejected prosecutors' argument that the officials failed to halt the geothermal operation or sufficiently analyze the risks even though induced earthquakes occurred before the main quake, acquitting all five defendants.
The ruling is expected to draw attention as it marks the first judicial decision on whether criminal responsibility applies in connection with the Pohang earthquake.
The First Criminal Division of the Daegu District Court's Pohang Branch on the 23rd acquitted all five defendants indicted on charges including professional negligence resulting in death and injury. They included two officials from the lead organization of the Pohang geothermal power consortium, two officials from a government-funded research institute, and a lead researcher from the industry-academia cooperation foundation of a university that participated in the consortium.
The defendants were indicted on charges of responding inadequately, in that they should have halted the geothermal operation and analyzed the risk level following a magnitude-3.1 induced earthquake around April 15, 2017, seven months before the Pohang earthquake occurred.
The Pohang earthquake on November 15, 2017, and a magnitude-4.6 earthquake on February 11, 2018, killed one person, injured 80 Pohang residents, and caused significant property damage.
A government investigation and research team that examined the cause of the earthquake released research findings in March 2019 stating that the Pohang earthquake had been triggered by hydraulic stimulation, in which water was injected during the geothermal power research project.
Based on these findings, various complaints and accusations were filed, prompting prosecutors to conduct an investigation in December 2019 targeting the organizations that led, oversaw, and participated in the research project.
The court explained its reasons for the acquittal, saying, "While it is acknowledged that the earthquake was triggered under the influence of hydraulic stimulation and other activities carried out in the research project, the scale of the energy was very large relative to the amount of water injected, and even if the defendants had violated their duty of care, a substantial causal relationship with the earthquake cannot be established."
