By Park Si-soo
Staff Reporter
Compensation negotiations for victims of a devastating fire at a warehouse in Icheon, Gyeonggi Province, have come to a standstill.
Representatives of the bereaved families had talks on Thursday and Friday with executives of Korea 2000, a logistics company that owns the warehouse, to discuss compensation for the dead and injured, but failed to reach an agreement.
The logistics firm suggested 60 million won for each fatality, far short of the 200 million won requested by the representatives.
``If the talks fail to reach a conclusion, we will take into account each victims' age and wage in calculating the compensation amount,'' said a Korea 2000 spokesman.
Police are also having difficulty finding out the cause of the blaze.
Investigators including experts in construction and firefighting have inspected the burned-out site three times so far but failed to find any decisive clues to the cause of the blaze.
Police plan to continue their investigations.
Apart from looking into the cause of the fire, police are also questioning more than 40 officials from the logistics company, its subcontractors and Icheon City officials.
The investigation is focused on a possible behind-closed-door deal between the company and local government in building the warehouse.
The prosecution imposed overseas travel restriction on four executives of the logistics firm Wednesday including the head of Korea 2000 and a superintendent of the construction site.
Another six Korea 2000 officials, subcontractors for the company and Icheon City officials were banned from leaving the country, Thursday.
``We are looking closely into links between the company and local government, and adding three more experts in construction and firefighting to the investigation team,'' said Park Hak-geun, spokesman for Gyeonggi Provincial Police Agency.
The fire and accompanying explosions ripped through the nearly completed cold storage warehouse on Monday, leaving 40 people dead and 10 others injured, some with severe burns.