20170205 Sparks from welding torch blamed for deadly Dongtan fire
Korea Mar 23 2017 “Building”
Dead : dead 0 or unknown Burnout : 1 to 29 Injured : injured 0 or unknown
Sparks from welding torch blamed for deadly Dongtan fire
Updated: 2017-02-05 18:28
By Kim Se-jeong
Welding in a children’s toy shop caused a fire in a Dongtan shopping mall south of Seoul, Saturday that killed four people and injured 47, Gyeonggi provincial authorities said Sunday.
The fire broke out at 11 a.m. and raged for 70 minutes before being extinguished.
A group of 23 police officers, fire fighters and forensic experts reviewed the site, Sunday, before confirming the cause in a press conference.
Two of the dead were workers refurbishing the shop, police said. Officers found welding equipment and a gas tank at the site of the fire.
Police said the shop had animation characters made of foam, which created toxic gas that filled the building when they caught fire. Police also obtained testimony that there was an explosion.
The other two victims were from a shop next door who couldn’t escape because of the gas.
According to fire department video footage, thick smoke billowed from the four-story mall. It also showed a man jumping from the building.
Police said many people were injured because the structure of the building, connected to two residential skyscrapers, allowed the smoke to spread quickly. The children’s shop was on the mall’s third floor. The two main skyscrapers have 1,266 apartments.
Fire survivors criticized the lack of an early emergency response from the building maintenance team.
“I didn’t hear a siren going off or any evacuation order,” a man, 28, told Yonhap News Agency. “I escaped because people were shouting. It was only when I came back to the building that I heard the siren and evacuation recording.”
By law, the building is supposed to have water sprinklers, but “I didn’t see any water,” another survivor said.
Saturday’s fire is a reminder of recent deadly incidents blamed on combustible materials. The worst was the 2015 fire in Uijeongbu, Gyeonggi Province, where a studio complex building fire killed or injured 130 residents. The fire began in the building’s basement and spread quickly because of foam-based construction materials.
Web Source:The korea times
http://koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2017/02/113_223267.html