Are Korea subways safe from disaster now?

A subway train is completely burnt down in a Feb. 18, 2003 fire in Daegu, which claimed around 200 lives. / Korea Times file

Disputes still continue

10 years after

Daegu catastrophe

Arsonist Kim Dae-han captured on CCTV

By Kim Tae-gyu

On Feb. 18, 2003, Han Sang-in left home around 9:30 a.m. in a hurry to go to a restaurant in Daegu where the 18-year-old worked as a part timer by her usual means of transportation ― the subway.

Her mother Hwang Young-ae, who ran a karaoke room back then, was sleeping after coming home late in the night. She heard her daughter leave while half asleep and the two would never meet again.

Han was aboard a train which was set on fire by an arsonist named Kim Dae-han, a disgruntled 50-something unemployed man who tried to kill himself in a public place.

Kim failed to kill himself but the highly inflammable liquid he used for the suicide attempt started a massive fire, which killed approximately 200 and injured some 150 others. The exact number of casualties is not available because many corpses were burned beyond recognition.

“My daughter was set to enter a university located in Daegu. She worked at the restaurant to help me finance her hefty tuitions,” said Hwang who raised three siblings after getting divorced a long time ago.

“On the eve of the disaster, she gave me about half a million won, a substantial part of her first salary. It was the last memory with my precious daughter. After then, I didn’t see her alive.”

Hwang could see her daughter’s remains, whose identity was confirmed via DNA analysis, in about four months just before the joint funeral took place late June.

Among bereaved families, women were advised not to see the bodies since in so many cases they were burned to the bone, but she opted not to follow the recommendations.

“I said that I will see my daughter’s remains even if I was shocked to death. As soon as I saw them, I collapsed on the spot and wept,” the tearful mother recollected.

“There were some bones, which were burned beyond recognition. And there was a wrist bone, which was as thin as my daughter’s. How could I know that it was my daughter’s?”

Who is real culprit?

The arsonist initially fled but was soon arrested. He was sentenced to life imprisonment for homicide and died in the late summer of 2004 while undergoing medical treatment.

Operators of the trains, who were also put behind the bars for up to five years for criminal negligence, finished their prison terms.

Bereaved families of the tragedy would have good reason to blame Kim or the train operators for the death of the victims. But they tended to point their fingers at others.

“Kim and subway workers are obviously culpable. But there is a real culprit of the Daegu city government. The latter’s responsibilities are much bigger than those of the former,” Hwang said.

“Daegu city operate wrongly-designed facilities and subway cars without any instructions in case of emergencies.”

Yoon Seok-ki, head of the organization of the bereaved families for the Daegu tragedy, concurred. He lost his sister-in-law due to the Feb. 18 tragedy.

“Before the incident, I guessed that subway cars were safe from blazes as they were made of metal. But actually, they were found to be highly inflammable and the subway operator had no idea how to deal with a fire,” Yoon said.

“Otherwise, the arsonist’s attempt would have ended up injuring only a few even under the worst-case scenario. But the worst infrastructures and negligence of the operators made it a catastrophe.”

Indeed, intensive follow-up investigations discovered that in Daegu subway safety, there were more holes than Swiss cheese.

Without any fire extinguishers, the subway trains were filled with combustible materials like vinyl and plastic in seat cushions, plastic matting on the floor and strap handles.

The stations were underequipped with sprinklers and an emergency lighting system so that many victims died in the dark underground station after their desperate efforts to find the exit failed.

“The relevant law stipulates metro cars should be composed of incombustible or fire-resistant material. The regulations were not complied with due in small part to the irregularities in the process of procuring them,” Yoon said.

“If the subway cars were made of noninflammable materials and the stations were properly equipped with safety facilities, I am sure that nobody would have been perished.”

Are subways safe now?

The calamity raised nationwide concerns on the safety of subways, not only in Daegu but also in other big cities like Seoul and Busan where millions of people move underground everyday.

In the face of public uproars, safety standards were substantially strengthened and the authority has tried to equip the subway trains with better fire-resistant materials while spraying fire-proofing chemicals on the interiors.

Fire extinguishers were installed and notices on how to open the subway doors in emergency are ubiquitous. When passengers push an emergency button, the operators are supposed to stop.

Most metro stations throughout the country are now fitted with platform screen doors and some went through major refurbishment to adopt the emergency ventilation and lighting systems.

Around 50 billion won was channeled to improve the metro safety standards in Daegu alone so that the Daegu Metropolitan Subway Corp. expects that such a tragedy will not happen again.

However, not everybody agrees.

“Indeed, the hardware of subways got much better over the past decade. But as time goes by, people forget about what happened in the past and become complacent and the evidence is easily found,” Daegu Metropolitan Subway Corp. trade union head Lee Seung-yong said.

“Daegu Metropolitan Subway Corp. appears to put the economic profitability on the front burner under the pretext of the annual losses. It is feared to cut corners due to financial reasons.”

Lee took issue with the outsourcing operation of stations to private entities, which he feared might seek for profits at the expenses of passengers’ safety.

In addition, the city is supposed to launch its third subway line, which will be operated by computer.

“The line No. 3 is based on the ideas of minimizing the labor force to cut down on costs. So unmanned trains will run fast on rails through unmanned stations,” he said.

“In terms of cost efficiency, it might be a good idea. But in terms of safety, it might be a terrible idea because it means that in emergency, nobody would be in charge on the spot.”

He also said that the old system under which a single engineer operates runs a subway train is not a safe way.

“It is difficult to insist that more than two officials should be present in a metro train at a time when the subway corporations make efforts to reduce its deficits. We understand that,” Lee said.

“However, for better safety, multiple operators are necessary. It is basically about the philosophy of managing the subway ― what we should put first among safety and financial health. I think we are required to move more toward safety."