By Byun Duk-kun
Staff Reporter
More than 130 people are feared dead in the arson attack on a subway in Taegu, the host city of this year’s Universiade to be held in August.
Fifty-one people were confirmed dead and the police expect the number to increase as 59 people were still reported missing late last night and some of the injured were in a critical condition.
With rescuers saying they had seen piles of bodies when they finally reached the underground, the death toll of the train arson is expected to rise.
Some 140 people suffering from burns and smoke inhalation were sent to nine different hospitals in the area for treatment.
According to local police, a man set a bottle containing paint thinner on fire and threw it onto a train on Taegu subway line 1 at around 9:55 a.m. yesterday. The suspect is now in police custody.
``When the train arrived at the Chungang-ro station and the doors opened, a man dressed in sportswear set a green plastic milk bottle on fire with a lighter, threw it onto the train’s seat and ran away,’’ 64-year old witness Chon Yoong-nam said.
Initially, only the train in which the suspect was riding caught fire, police said.
However, the number of casualties grew as the fire spread rapidly and destroyed a second six-carriage train, which arrived across the platform from it at the station.
Subway officials were unaware of the fire until more than 10 minutes after its outbreak, allowing the second subway to arrive at station and delaying rescue efforts.
Kim Bok-sun, 45, said her missing daughter, 21-year-old Kang Yeon-ju, was on the burning train and telephoned her mother in a panic.
``She only said that there was a fire and the train door wasn't opening, so I told her to just break open a window and get out,'' Kim said. Kim called her daughter back a few minutes later, ``but she never answered the phone.''
The 56-year old suspect, Kim Dae-han, was apprehended two hours after the incident at a hospital in Puk-gu, Taegu. He was later transferred to Kyungpook National University Hospital by the police to receive treatment for burns he incurred while setting the bottle he threw onto the subway on fire.
Kim allegedly committed the crime because he was angry about the physical disability he incurred during brain surgery he received for a stroke in 2001, police said.
Kim reportedly told his family members repeatedly that he would set the hospital at which he had undergone surgery on fire, according to the police.
Passengers, who were near the suspect when he threw the flaming bottle inside the train, tried to stop him.
``He pulled out the gasoline bottle from a black bag and lit it. He threw the bottle while people fought to take it away from him,’’ Park Kum-tae said.
Park received second-degree burns to his arms and legs while trying to stop the suspect from throwing the bottle.
Subway attack kills at least 130
A man started a fire aboard a subway car in the southeastern city of Daegu yesterday, in an arson attack that killed at least 130 people and injured a further 100, police said.
Daegu police said they were questioning a 56-year old man named Kim Dae-han in connection with the crime. Kim was apprehended in a Daegu hospital, where he was being treated for a burn he presumably sustained at the site of the fire, according to Kim Byung-tak, chief of the emergency headquarters.
"Some witnesses have already confirmed the face of the suspect. We are now interrogating him," Kim said.
According to witnesses, the suspected arsonist lit a milk container carrying flammable material and lobbed it inside the subway car as it approached Jungangro Station in Namil-dong, central Daegu, at around 9:55 a.m. It ignited a blaze, burning and suffocating passengers in the car.
The death toll stood at around 130. Those who suffered injuries, some of them seriusly, were taken to eight nearby hospitals.
Police said the death toll would increase.
South Korean Army soldiers and U.S. military personnel worked with local police, firefighters and paramedics to contain the blaze and rescue passengers.
A witness was quoted as saying by Yonhap News Agency that people around the suspect tried to stop him.
"The man produced a pack out of his black bag and lit it with a cigarette lighter. When people around him scuffled to stop him, he just hurled it overhead and it exploded into flames," Park Keum-tae, a Daegu resident, was quoted as saying.
Authorities immediately set up emergency headquarters near the subway station, where up to 1,000 city officials, police officers and fire fighters tried to rescue survivors and remove the dead and injured to hospitals.
Subway operations were suspended in the city that lies 320 km southeast of Seoul. The emission of toxic gas forced residents in surrounding areas to take shelter and temporarily paralyzed traffic in the region.