South Korean crane collapses through Seoul building roof onto bus killing one and injuring 16 others

'There was a huge bang and I saw people fleeing,' a witness said

A woman was killed and 16 others injured, one of the critically, after a 70-tonne crane fell onto a bus in South Korea's capital, Seoul.

Witnesses told how they heard a “huge bang” when the neck of the crane smashed through the roof of the bus.

A 53-year-old woman, named only by her surname, Kim was killed when it hit the single decker bus after falling from a construction site across the road.

Firefighters told The Korea Times that one person was in intensive care with serious injuries.

The others only suffered minor injuries.

A video of the accident's aftermath shows one of the windows was smashed. Blood appears to have been smeared on a section of the roof which has caved in to the seats.

The base part of the crane can be seen on its side in the building site near the Gangseo District Office in the city.

It collapsed as its operator was trying to hoist a 5-tonne excavator to the top of a five-storey building, police said. The driver was not hurt in the incident.

“The horizontal strut called a boom hit the middle of the bus,” a rescue worker told The Korea Times. “The people most seriously injured were those who were standing in the middle.”

“There was a huge bang and I saw people fleeing the bus,” a 36-year-old witness told the newspaper.

Police cordoned off the area and forensics officers were examining the scene for clues into the causes of the accident.

Several cranes have collapsed in South Korea in recent years, killing 20 people.

Officials started conducting inspections of 500 construction sites amid claims by experts that some of the equipment being used is old and needed to be repaired or replaced.