At least 30 people were killed on Monday and 10 others missing, feared dead, following a fierce blaze in a South Korean refrigerated warehouse, firefighters said.
About 200 firefighters were sent into the basement of the two-storey building in Icheon, 80km south of Seoul, after the fire was put out, and recovered 30 bodies.
“The death toll is expected to rise as 10 more are still feared dead in the basement,” Woo Sung-Shik, a fire department official, said.
“The rescue work has been hampered by toxic fumes but we are trying hard to recover the remaining bodies,” he said. “Most bodies were so badly damaged that it was impossible to identify them on the spot.”
The victims included ethnic Koreans from China, according to television reports. Firefighters said 10 people were sent to hospital for burns or for fume inhalation.
The fire apparently started in the warehouse basement where workers were using flammable materials, other officials said.
Witnesses said that there were explosions from the basement of the cold-storage facility, which had been under construction, before the fire broke out.
Hundreds of firefighters and police battled the blaze.
At the time of the blaze, 57 people were working in the warehouse, Yonhap news agency said.
The exact cause of the fire was not known, but investigators believe inflammable vapour from the basement’s engine room might have caught fire, setting off consecutive explosions, said Kim Jung-Keun at the Icheon fire department.
“We believe flammable gas caused by work with thinners and polyurethanes might have exploded with a spark. The blaze triggered a chain of explosions, gutting the basement quickly,” he said.
Workers had been welding in the building, Yonhap said.
“There were loud bangs, flames shot up and one seriously burned woman ran into my restaurant crying for help,” Lee Yong-Seon (43), who runs a restaurant near the warehouse, was quoted as saying.
More than 100 fire engines and 600 firefighters, backed by hundreds of police, tackled the blaze. Fire authorities have evacuated hundreds of residents from the nearby town. — AFP