The Hindu : Arson: toxic gases impede rescue work

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Feb 19, 2003

International

International

Arson: toxic gases impede rescue work

SEOUL FEB. 18. In a horrific act, a man with a history of mental illness today set afire a sub-way train killing more than 130 people, most of them charred beyond recognition, and injuring 140 others in central South Korean city of Daegu.

Rescuers have discovered as many as 100 bodies inside the wreckage of the train, official Yonhap news agency reported. The sub-way was filled with toxic gases impeding rescue efforts. The fire brought the entire sub-way system to a halt and paralysed traffic on ground as frantic fire-fighters and rescue workers rushed to the spot.

At least 140 others injured in the blaze were being treated at eight hospitals in Daegu, about 300 km south east of Seoul, police said, adding more than 70 were still missing.

Rescuers at the accident site were quoted as saying that most of the bodies were burnt beyond recognition and would take time to identify them.

The middle-aged man ignited a carton containing inflammable liquid and threw it on a six-car subway train bound for Ansim from Jincheon this morning, police said. The train immediately caught fire which spread to another six-car sub-way train that was at the station.

The fire gutted 12 sub-way cars before fire-fighters controlled it more than three hours after the attack.

`Insane person to blame'

Police said they had apprehended the 56-year-old arson suspect, identified as Kim-Dae-Hwan, reported to be a former mental patient, who was being treated for burns to his legs and arms in nearby hospital. Police did not know what motivated the attack.

According to medical authorities many victims died due to smoke inhalation.

The South Korean President, Kim Dae-Jung, has expresses his condolences to the families of the victims of the attack. ``I express my condolences and offfer solace to the victims of the incident,'' the message from the President said.

Daegu, South Korea's third largest city, after Seoul and Pusan, has only one sub-way line in operation for last five years. In 1995, a gas explosion in a sub-way construction site in the city killed 101 people and injured at least 140.

Television channels showed thick black smoke billowing out of ventilator shafts and above-ground entrances of the sub-way, minutes after the attack. Fire-fighters gave horrifying accounts of the scene underground. Many bodies were found on the sub-way stairs, where people apparently choked as they tried to escape. On the platform and in the train were the ashen bones of those trapped in the flames.

The police were interrogating Kim Dae-han, who witnesses said carried the carton into the sub-way car. Another police official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Kim Dae-han had been treated for mental illness in the past.

``When the man tried to use a cigarette lighter to light the box, some passengers tied to stop him. Apparently a scuffle erupted and the box exploded into flames,'' the officer said.

The television station YTN aired footage of the frantic scene inside a nearby hospital, showing nurses attending to a man who was reportedly the suspect. The man sat frowning on a bed wearing a hospital smock, his face and hands smudged with soot.

A police sergeant said Kim Dae-han had been burned on both legs and the right wrist. But a doctor told YTN that the man's only injury was toxic gas inhalation. — PTI

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