President Yoon Suk Yeol has directed his administration to develop "scientific safety measures" in response to the recent deadly fire at a lithium battery factory in Hwaseong, Gyeonggi Province. During a Cabinet meeting, Yoon instructed the Ministry of Interior and Safety, the Ministry of Employment and Labor, and the Ministry of Science and ICT to enhance their collaboration in creating advanced risk detection technologies and firefighting techniques for specific chemical substances. He emphasized the need for improved firefighting technology and workplace safety awareness to keep pace with the growth of new industries, citing this as a contributing factor to the authorities' failure to address safety issues at the factory. Yoon stressed the importance of implementing more scientific safety measures and investigating potential causes of fire accidents in cutting-edge industries, stating that regulations and disciplinary actions alone cannot guarantee industrial workplace safety. Yoon's directives follow a devastating fire at a lithium battery factory that resulted in the deaths of 23 workers, predominantly foreign day laborers. The victims suffered asphyxiation as the fire rapidly spread inside the factory, which housed approximately 35,000 battery cells. In response to the tragedy, the government announced plans to conduct safety inspections at around 500 lithium battery plants nationwide. However, opposition representative Park Hong-bae criticized Yoon's approach, attributing the deadly fire to lax government oversight and a reduction in crackdowns on corporations' practices of illegally dispatching their contractors' employees to the workplace. Park also highlighted discrepancies between the financial benefits received by the destroyed plant in state risk assessments and claims from bereaved families regarding inadequate safety training for the workers.