A fireplace attributable to suspected arson unfold via an workplace constructing Thursday in South Korea’s Daegu metropolis, killing not less than seven individuals and injuring dozens of others, native hearth and police officers stated.
Dozens of firefighters and automobiles had been deployed and shortly put out the blaze, which started round 10:55 a.m. native time on the second ground of a seven-floor workplace constructing close to the town’s district court docket.
Seven individuals had been confirmed as lifeless, together with an unidentified man who police suspect set the hearth in a lawyer’s workplace. At the very least 41 individuals had been harm, principally from smoke inhalation, and 26 of them had been being handled at close by hospitals, stated Park Seok-jin, chief of Daegu’s Suseong district hearth division.
No different individuals had been trapped within the constructing, Park stated.
Jeong Hyeon-wook, an official from Daegu Metropolitan Police, stated safety digital camera footage exhibits the suspect leaving his house holding an obvious container with each fingers which will have been used to set the blaze. Jeong stated the entire lifeless victims had been present in the identical room and that police had been investigating attainable motives.
South Korean media printed images they stated had been acquired from witnesses that present smoke rising from the constructing in Beomeo-dong, an prosperous enterprise district in Daegu, which is South Korea’s fourth-largest metropolis and residential to greater than 2.6 million individuals.
Different images confirmed damaged home windows, which Park stated had been attributable to rescue efforts.
Daegu was the positioning of one of many worst arson assaults in South Korea’s historical past in 2003 when 192 individuals died after a 56-year-old man set hearth on a subway practice.