By Kim Rahn
Staff Reporter
At least 35 people were reported killed and 5 missing Monday after a fire broke out at a cold storage warehouse under construction in Icheon, Gyeonggi Province, police officials said.
Thirteen foreign workers, including several Chinese nationals and a pregnant woman, were among the dead or missing. Police said it will take time to identify the dead as many of their bodies were severely burned.
The number of casualties is likely to rise as the 10 other workers were locked inside the engulfed underground facilities until the blaze was brought under control at 8 p.m. About 10 others were reported injured.
The cause of the blaze was unknown, but an official from the fire service said that inflammable vapor from the basement's engine room was believed to have caught fire, setting off three consecutive explosions at 10-second intervals.
Burning toxic chemicals made it difficult for firefighters to approach the building to extinguish the blaze, which gutted the entire warehouse.
The official said a total of 57 people were working in the warehouse when the fire started at around 10:45 a.m. in the basement of a two-story warehouse owned by the logistics company Korea 2000.
Workers were engaged in injecting refrigerants into the warehouse and doing other work in preparation for its opening, scheduled for Saturday.
Seventeen people were rescued or escaped from the building. Some of them were rushed to hospitals with serious burn injuries, according to police officers at the scene.
More than 620 firefighters and 214 fire engines rushed to the fire, but they had difficulty in extinguishing it and rescuing workers as chemicals kept exploding and emitting toxic gases from the 20,000-square-meter basement.
The searchers' task was made extremely difficult by the large size of the building's interior and the highly flammable composition of its insulation.
With the fire rapidly accelerating out of control, rescue teams facing near-zero visibility were unable to approach the site.
The fire completely destroyed the two-story warehouse as some 600 residents from nearby sought shelter in their community hall.
According to the rescued workers, the fire broke out suddenly with a series of explosions while they were constructing cold storage facilities with urethane and thinners. Toxic fumes were still coming out of the warehouse, and the temperature inside was still too high to allow for a search for the missing.
The fire spread to the whole warehouse with toxic gas and chemicals, preventing people from escaping. A worker in the storehouse called the fire station for help using his cell phone, a police officer said, adding that officials are looking into the exact cause of the fire.