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Arson on Subway Holes in Safety Should Be Mended Immediately | |||
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It was a cold morning in February 2003 when 192 subway passengers lost their lives and 146 others were injured in a fire that engulfed two trains in Taegu. The tragic incident stunned the entire nation. The deadly fire was lit by a man in his 50s who had a history of mental illness. A substantial number of the victims could have been saved if the seats and other interior materials in the train cars had been made of substances resisting fire and giving out no toxic gases. . Taking a bitter lesson from the Taegu subway disaster, the government should have already addressed the problems, including that of its overworked and inexperienced train operators. But there is still a long way to go to realize hazard reduction, as demonstrated by a fire in a subway train in Seoul, which took place in the morning on Monday, the first workday of the New Year. The fire could have easily developed into a disaster like the Taegu subway arson. Only one passenger was slightly injured from the fire allegedly set by a middle-aged man who fled soon after. Police caught a man in his 40s as the suspect of arson. Three cars in the train on Subway Line 7 were completely guttered by the fire set off with a bunch of newspapers. What astonishes us most of all is the fact that the train ran for nearly seven minutes passing two stations after the fire broke out in one of its cars. Some 20 passengers in the car where the man set fire moved to other cars and got off in a hurry when the train stopped at the first station after the incident. Without the drivers knowing about the fire, the train ran through to the next station where the subway authorities finally evacuated about 100 passengers aboard. Believing the fire was extinguished at the station, the authorities let the train run to the last station on the line without stopping. But the fire came alive in the same car and consumed two more cars when the train reached the final destination. The subway authorities said that the carriages that caught fire had not been replaced with incombustible seats and interiors. However, under no circumstances could their excuse be understood because the neglect of their supervision could have killed another hundreds of people. Those who were responsible for allowing the train to move on after the fire was detected should be severely punished in order to prevent the recurrences of the same kind of mistake. Needless to say, the government should enhance its controls on the subway system and other mass-commuting means to strengthen the protection of passengers. Most of all, all seats and other materials which may easily catch fire and give out toxic gases should be replaced with safe ones as quickly as possible. As the fire was set off by a bundle of newspapers, the government needs to take steps to deter passengers from leaving papers, mostly free tabloids, in the cars when they get off. There should be no more cases in which passengers will lose their precious lives because of the negligence in mending the holes in the mass-transit system. |