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| Investigators enter a burnt warehouse on the second day of their forensic investigation into the cause of a fire that left 38 workers dead, Friday. Yonhap |
Among the 38 people who lost their lives in a fire at a warehouse construction site in Icheon, Gyeonggi Province, Thursday, were migrant workers including an ethnic Korean from China and two Kazakhstanis.
"This was my brother's second day working here," the older brother of the ethnic Korean said, while not revealing their names. "He came to Korea with his family and was working hard to make the Korean dream. I am torn apart," the man told the Hankook Ilbo, the sister paper of The Korea Times.
The two victims from Kazakhstan have yet to be identified. Police said of the 38 bodies recovered, 33 have been partially identified, while the National Forensic Service (NFS) is running DNA tests on the remaining five as they were too badly damaged by the fire. Ten other workers were injured in the blaze.
A team of fire investigators continued a second day of an on-site investigation of the warehouse construction site Friday only to find devices used in construction, pieces of clothing, a smartphone and a pair of glasses, as well as pieces of what appeared to be human bones. The bones were sent to the NFS for examination.
While they haven't said anything about the exact cause of the fire, it apparently started in a second basement where workers were doing insulation work using urethane foam next to others who were installing a freight elevator. Urethane foam releases a combustible oily mist, while the elevator installation involved welding.
Survivors said they heard several explosions and smelled and saw "toxic smoke."
"I was working on the second floor. I saw the black smoke from below and sensed quickly that it was a fire. I was trying to run down stairs, but I couldn't see well because of the smoke," one survivor told the Hankook Ilbo.
The investigators said the fire spread fast in the six-story building ― some media outlets said it took only three minutes to engulf the entire building ― because combustible building materials were being uses, especially "sandwich panels" that were scattered throughout the structure.
Laws require construction work of the size of this one taking place in Icheon to have a supervisor on site to make sure workers follow safety guidelines, such as removing any flammable material before welding work begins.
The investigators said no such supervisor was at the site. Also the construction company, Keonwoo, reportedly ignored multiple warnings from the occupational safety and health agency about safety guideline violations between March last year and this year.
On Thursday, police confiscated files and documents from Keonwoo and three other companies involved in the warehouse construction.
Keonwoo President Lee Sang-sup visited the site and apologized to family members of the deceased. He fainted as he was leaving the site and was driven to a local hospital.
Workers' rights advocacy groups gathered outside the warehouse remains, demanding tough sanctions against those found to be responsible for the incident.
"This incident is identical to another that happened in 2008. Nothing changed because they weren't punished adequately. We demand new legislation that imposes heavy punitive damages on those responsible," several activists insisted, adding more thorough safety inspections should be conducted by the government.
In 2008, a warehouse for frozen products caught fire, killing 40 workers. Similarly, a fire at a sports center in Jecheon in North Chungcheong Province killed 29 in 2017, followed by another in Miryang, North Gyeongsang Province in 2018 that killed 45.
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