Firefighters picked through charred bodies on two crowded subway trains in South Korea last night for evidence of a suspected arson attack that killed more than 120 commuters.
The underground inferno, which trapped dozens of passengers in their carriages and asphyxiated many others on a nearby platform, is believed to have been sparked by a man with a milk carton full of fuel.
Police said they were carrying out psychiatric tests on the suspect, Kim Dae-han, who escaped the conflagration with minor burns after he reportedly ignited the carton inside a train carriage.
Witnesses said Kim aroused suspicion by fidgeting with a lighter, but their accounts of what happened next were confused. Some said he threw the carton like a Molotov cocktail into the first carriage of a northbound train. Others reported that it slipped during a scuffle.
”The man kept flicking a lighter and an old man told him to stop,” said a passenger interviewed on television. ”The man dropped the lighter and the train caught fire. Several young men seized him, but the fire spread and black smoke rose. Then everyone rushed out.”
Rescue official Lee Hyong-kyun said there was hardly any time to escape. ”If you ignite a flammable liquid like gasoline inside a closed space, what you’ll get is something very close to an explosion,” he said.
Survivors said the blaze was detected by platform sensors, which tripped electricity circuits and left the train without power to pull out of the station or reopen its doors. Dozens were trapped as fire spread through the carriages and to a train that had pulled on to an adjacent track.
Authorities estimated that 400 people were on the two trains, each with six carriages. By 11pm yesterday, officials estimated that 122 people were dead and 135 injured.
”My daughter called me twice at 9.57am crying ‘mother there’s smoke everywhere, but the door won’t open” said a woman at an emergency centre outside Joongangro station.
Kim Bok-sun said her 21-year-old daughter Kang Yeon-ju had called to say there was no way out. Ms Kim called the police and then tried to ring her daughter back: ”But she never answered the phone.”
For hours after the morning blaze, acrid smoke billowed out of station entrances in Taegu, South Korea’s third largest city, as onlookers joined family members who had came to search for their relatives.
Chung Sook-jae said her 26-year-old daughter Min Shim-eun had phoned her husband to say she was suffocating. Then the line went dead. ”If she’s not out by now, she’s probably dead. What am I going to do if her body is burned out of all recognition?” said Ms Chung.
By 10pm yesterday, emergency services had recovered 50 bodies and counted 70 more inside the gutted carriages.
”Everything that can be burned has been burned, the chairs and everything,” said Chun Tae-ryong, a firefighter. ”I brought out five people.
”Three were alive when I rescued them, but I don’t know what happened to them.”
It took three hours for the firefighters to bring the blaze under control, but poisonous fumes from the tunnels 18 metres below ground made access difficult for several more hours.
Television images later revealed the carnage inside the trains, where steel frames and plastic linings had been twisted by the heat. Charred bones were covered with white sheets.
Some appear to have escaped from the flames in the carriage only to have been killed by fumes in the tunnels.
”There were white bones scattered on the floor mixed with people’s burned belongings. There was even a skull,” firefighter Park Chang-shik told reporters. ”I brought up four bodies. They were lying on the stairs. I didn’t even have time to feel terrible.”
The motive for the alleged attack is unknown, though the 56-year-old suspect had reportedly been treated for depression and other psychiatric problems after suffering a stroke in 2001.
According to local media, Kim is a truck driver who had previously threatened to burn down a hospital because he was unhappy with the treatment he received.
After the blaze, a man reported to be Kim was filmed frowning as nurses tended to his injuries in hospital. His features were blackened by soot.
Police Sergeant Yu Heung-soo said Kim had been burned on both legs and the right wrist. Other reports suggested he was being treated only for respiratory problems.
DNA tests will be needed to identify many of the bodies. Emergency officials said they had given up hope of finding any survivors.
The investigation and the identification of the remains will shift tomorrow to a terminus on the single-route subway line where the carriages were to be towed for forensic examination. – Guardian Unlimited Â