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South Korean subway blaze 'close to hell'
No time for commuters to escape fire that ripped through station,
rescuers say
JIN DAVID KIM SPECIAL TO THE GLOBE AND MAIL, Agence France Press, Reuter News Agency, New York Times
738 words
19 February 2003
The Globe and Mail
Metro
A3
English
"All material Copyright (c) Bell Globemedia Publishing Inc. and its licensors. All rights reserved."
SEOUL -- Relatives of the dead pounded their chests with grief, and rescue workers described a hellish scene in the South Korean city of Daegu yesterday, where at least 120 people perished in a subway blaze reportedly set by a man with a history of mental illness.
Dense black smoke poured from the subway tunnel for hours after the mid-morning blaze.
Shaken firefighters, emerging from a three-hour battle against the blaze, described charred, skeletal remains amid the acrid smoke.
"It was close to hell down there. There were some human remains, people just burned down to the bone," a grime-covered firefighter said.
Many bodies were burned beyond recognition. Officials said they would have to wait for DNA tests to determine the number killed, which could take weeks.
Throughout the day, hundreds of anxious onlookers gathered near the entrances of the Jungangno subway station, harbouring hopes that their loved ones were among the roughly 140 survivors who were admitted to area hospitals suffering from serious burns and smoke inhalation.
Kim Bok-sun, 45, said her daughter had been on the burning train, and called from her cellphone in a panic.
"She only said that there was a fire and the train door wasn't opening, so I told her to just break open a window and get out," Ms. Kim said, her voice trembling. When she called her daughter back a few minutes later, the young woman did not answer.
"I've been here all day waiting to hear anything about my older sister," another woman said, wiping her red and bleary eyes.
"I don't know how something like this could happen."
Witnesses said the fire started when a man lit a milk carton full of fuel as the train he was on pulled into the station.
"The man took a package out of his black bag and lit it with a cigarette lighter," passenger Park Kum-tae told Yonhap News Agency.
"When people around him attempted to stop him, he just hurled it overhead and it exploded into flames."
The fire quickly ignited the six-car train's seat fabric and floor tiles, officials said, then jumped to a train that was entering the station on the opposite tracks.
"If you ignite a flammable liquid like gasoline inside a closed space, what you'll get is something very close to an explosion," rescuer Lee Hyong-kyun said.
"There would have been hardly any time to escape."
Toxic smoke from the melting plastic seats and flammable flooring asphyxiated dozens on the subway platform and overcame others on the stairs as they tried to reach the surface.
At least 14 subway employees were killed, CNN reported.
Kim Dae-han, 56, identified by witnesses as the man who started the fire, was among the survivors. Police took him into custody at Daegu hospital, where news cameras caught him frowning as nurses tended to respiratory problems and possible burns.
At a news conference, Daegu Mayor Cho Hae-hyong said the man has "a history of mental illness," and South Korean news media said that the man, a truck driver, had threatened to burn down a hospital after complaining that he had not been treated properly during brain surgery.
But police said they did not know what motivated the attack or the substance used to start the blaze.
The attack triggered emergency inspections of subway fire and safety equipment in major cities across the country.
South Korean President Kim Dae-jung, in his last week in office, did not immediately speak publicly about the tragedy.
But he ordered the government to consider designating the station a special disaster zone, which would give it priority for government aid and other assistance.
Daegu, one of the 10 World Cup soccer venues last year, is the third-largest city in South Korea, with a population of 2.5 million. Yesterday's incident was the second disaster for its only subway line: In 1995, 101 people were killed in an explosion during its construction when workers accidentally cut a gas line.
The city's streets were gridlocked yesterday as commuters, reacting to the subway closure, scrambled to get to work in their cars.
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