Fire in the subway in Daegu

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The fire in the subway in Daegu is the second worst accident in an underground system: A psychotic put on 18 February 2003 in the stop Jungangno in the center of the fourth largest South Korean city of Daegu in a suicide attempt a train on fire. 192 people died.

Starting position

The two-track underground railway line , operated by the Daegu Metropolitan Subway Corporation (DMSC), is 25.9 kilometers long, runs from the train station Daegok to the station Ansim and has 30 stops on. The station Jungangno located in the city center. It has three basement floors. There is a shopping level on the top floor, the underground trains run on the third basement floor. The platforms are on the outside, the distance between two stopping trains is about 1.3 meters. Fire doors and smoke alarms were only on the two upper levels; there was no emergency lighting or emergency management.

The trains on Line 1 were about 10 years old and each had six cars. Seats and floors of the cars were made of GRP , PVC and polyethylene , flammable plastics.

The arsonist, a 56-year-old unemployed taxi driver at the time of the crime , was mentally confused . He wanted to commit suicide in a place where as many people as possible were in order to kill them too. To do this, he wanted to pour flammable liquid over himself on the train and burn himself . He boarded the first car on train 1079 and carried a four-liter container for antifreeze with him , filled with white spirit or gasoline .

Course of events

The perpetrator ignited the liquid in the container with a lighter when the train entered Jungangno Station at around 9:50 a.m. and poured the burning liquid on the floor. Although his legs and back were on fire, the perpetrator managed to flee with many others, but the fire had hit all the cars on the train within two minutes . The flammable plastic produced a thick, toxic smoke.

In the alarmed operations center, the situation was initially completely underestimated, and the first fire alarm was ignored, as false alarms occurred frequently. Four minutes later , the dispatcher let train 1080 enter the station on the track in the opposite direction, which came to a stop right next to the burning train. The dispatcher had only recommended the driver to enter slowly and then to evacuate the train. The doors opened briefly, but were then closed again, probably to prevent the smoke from getting into the vehicle. Shortly after the arrival of the second train, the power supply collapsed due to the heat generated by the burning first train - it was switched off according to another source - which also deactivated the fire alarm systems in the station and both the ventilation and the sprinkler system failed. The blackout also prevented the second train from leaving the station. The driver tried to contact the operations control center. From there, the request came to get off the train as quickly as possible. He followed the order, but the doors of only three cars could be opened. The train driver fled, taking with him the master key for running the train, without which the other doors could no longer be opened. That included the travelers, none of whom survived. Both trains and the lowest level of Jungangno station burned out completely. Temperatures of more than 1000 ° C were reached. The fire also spread to the level above, but was effectively dammed up there by fire doors.

consequences

A sooty wall with greetings from relatives

Although the fire was smothered around 1:30 p.m., the rescuers were only able to enter the station around 3:30 p.m. due to the thick, toxic smoke and high temperatures. The victims were burned beyond recognition, so that in some cases DNA analyzes could no longer be carried out. In total, six of the 192 dead could no longer be identified. In addition, there were 148 injured, some of them seriously. Most of the people died on the second train.

The perpetrator survived the fire and was sentenced to life imprisonment for arson and manslaughter in August 2003. He died in custody on August 31, 2004. The two drivers were sentenced to five and four years in prison, respectively. Investigations were initiated against five other employees of the subway.

The accident was considered a national embarrassment. There was widespread debate as to whether South Korea had not made too many compromises at the expense of security in the country's rapid economic rise.

literature

  • M. Tsujimoto: Issues raised by the recent subway fire in South Korea. In: ICUS / INCEDE Newsletter (2003) 3 (2). The University of Tokyo (Ed.): Institute of Industrial Science, pp. 1-3.
  • NN: Subway inferno in Korea. In: Eisenbahn-Revue International , issue 4/2003, ISSN  1421-2811 , p. 179.

Web links

Commons : Fire in the subway in Daegu  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Remarks

  1. ↑ The metro accident in Baku is considered to be the most serious accident in a subway system

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See schematic representation at: NN: Daegu Subway Station Fire.
  2. ↑ a b c NN: Daegu Subway Station Fire, South Korea.
  3. ↑ a b c d e Don Kirk: Effort to Fix Responsibility for Deadly Korean Subway Fire. In: The New York Times . February 21, 2003.
  4. ↑ a b c d e f ( page no longer available , search in web archives: National Emergency Management Agency Socity [!] )@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.nema.go.kr
  5. ↑ a b c NN: Fire Alarm Ignored and Not Immediately Informed.

Coordinates: 35 ° 52 ′ 16 ″  N , 128 ° 35 ′ 39 ″  E