Not less than 38 people have died In a fire that broke out in a building site in Seoul, the South Korea’s capital.
In the Wednesday fire incident, which apparently was one of the worst in the country, 30 members of staff were able to narrowly escape with two other staff slightly hurt while eight more staff are receiving treatment for serious injury.
There were fears that other people might have been trapped in the collapsed warehouse that was under construction in Icheon.
The cause of the fire is still unknown, but officials have linked the fire to an explosion that occurred while workers were working underground at the site.
“We presume that an ignition of oil mist caused an explosion and that the sudden combustion gave the workersno chance to escape,” the head of the Icheon fire department, Seo Seung-hyun, said.
Seung-hyun further stated that some of the victims who have died might have inhaled toxic gas which could eventually have led to their deaths.
“The victims who died on the other floors probably inhaled toxic gas, and that more than 400 firefighters and rescue workers, along with 120 vehicles, were deployed to the scene,” added Seung-hyun.
President Moon Jae-in, the South Korea president, has ordered use of available resources in the search and rescue operations.
In a swift response to the fire outbreak, Chung Sye-kyun, who is the prime minister of the country has paid an emergency visit to the site to oversee actions being put in place.
Meanwhile, Icheon had seen a fire outbreak in 2008 that claimed about 40 lives at a warehouse, and also in 2018 another had erupted in a hospital that had no sprinklers in southern city of Miryang. The fire incident claimed about 46 lives.
Such repeated fire incidences in the country have raised the question as to what extent the South Korean government is putting efforts in place to prioritize Safety in the country as it does with its economic development.
