Warehouse Officials Face Arrests for Fire
By Kim Rahn
Staff Reporter
Police have requested arrest warrants for three officials of Korea 2000, the owner of the warehouse in Icheon, Gyeonggi Province, which caught fire and claimed 40 lives.
However, the exact cause of the fire is still unknown.
Police sought warrants for the company's inspector, facilities manager and safety manager on suspicions of negligence resulting in death at the warehouse under construction. The company head, 47-year-old Kong, is also under investigation on the same suspicions and may face arrest soon, police officials said while announcing the interim results of the investigation into the fire.
According to the police, many would have survived if the fireproof shutters had worked properly.
The company officials had changed the sprinkler, fireproof shutter and emergency bell systems, so that the facilities could not operate automatically. ``We obtained testimonies from the managers that they made the system operate manually in order to prevent trouble from possible system errors,'' an officer said.
After inspections done in conjunction with the National Institute of Scientific Investigation (NISI), police presume the fire first broke out in a freezing compartment in the nearly completed warehouse. They first suspected the fire started in an engine room, as the largest number of bodies were found there.
The police have not found out the exact cause of the fire. Witnesses and survivors testified that workers in the freezing compartment were not conducting welding operations, which may have sparked the fire. Police do not rule out the possibility of a short circuit or accidental fire started by a worker.
They have asked fire experts to conduct a simulation of the fire to find the exact cause.
The police plan to focus on probing the company's alleged illegalities in obtaining approval for the construction of the warehouse and changing the design of the building.
In the meantime, police and NISI have confirmed the identity of 34 victims out of a total of 40, delivering 18 bodies to bereaved families so far.