Tag: fire

Not all heroes wear shoes:

A 23-year-old South Korean man alerted his neighbors in an apartment fire in Seoul last week, helping all 95 residents to escape to safety, local media reported Monday.

On Thursday a fire broke out on the 14th floor of an apartment building in Banghwa-dong of Gangseo-gu, western Seoul, at 6:30 a.m., with no casualties except four minor cases of smoke inhalation. A report from local daily Dong-A Ilbo revealed that this was thanks to heroic efforts by a resident named Woo Il-yeong.

According to the report, the sixth-floor resident became aware of the fire while preparing for work, and went up to the 14th floor to find that smoke had filled the halls. After coming back downstairs to get a wet cloth, he went back up to find if anyone needed help.

Woo found an elderly person wondering around in the smoke on the 14th floor and led the person downstairs. He then ran up and down the stairs for 30 minutes to knocking on the doors and urge other residents to evacuate the building, before firefighters arrived on the scene.

After all 95 occupants had escaped to safety, he realized that he had lost his slippers. (…….)

Officials found that the fire started when a resident on the 14th floor was lighting a cigarette. It was also found that the building’s fire-resistant doors meant to prevent the spread of fire had been left open, allowing the blaze to spread across the entire floor within a short period.

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link.

This is horrible that this man had to jump from his apartment holding his child and died from the impact, but the child survived:

A father in his 30s died Monday after jumping from the fourth floor of a high-rise apartment building in Seoul carrying his young child, in a desperate attempt to flee from a fire on Christmas Day.

He was one of two fatalities from the fire, which broke out at the apartment building in Banghak-dong, in Seoul’s Dobong district. As of Monday afternoon, 30 suffered injuries.

According to local news reports, the 30-something-year-old victim, wife and two children aged 7 months and 2 years, were residents of a unit right above the third floor where the blaze started.

His wife also jumped with another child. She survived despite suffering life-threatening injuries. The two children were reported to be injured but in stable condition.

Another victim of the fire was a 38-year-old individual identified by the surname Lim, a resident of the 10th floor. Lim was discovered in full cardiac arrest on the stairs of the 11th floor. Fire authorities suspect that Lim succumbed to smoke inhalation while attempting to evacuate, according to news reports.

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link.

Great job by the firefighters in Seoul for quickly putting out this forest fire before any property damage in the city could occur:

A wildfire on a mountain in central Seoul was completely put out Monday afternoon after 25 hours, authorities said.

The fire started on Mount Inwang, a popular trekking spot in the central ward of Jongno, shortly before noon Sunday and spread rapidly due to strong wind, temporarily forcing about 120 households to evacuate, according to the Seoul city government. No injuries or deaths have been reported.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but no word yet on what the cause of the fire was.

Hopefully firefighters can get this fire under control before it spreads down the mountain slopes towards Seoul:

President Yoon Suk Yeol instructed relevant authorities Sunday to make all-out efforts to put out and prevent spring wildfires, his office said.

Yoon issued the message following reports of wildfires on Mount Inwang, near the previous location of South Korea’s presidential office, and a mountain in Hongseong, 114 kilometers south of Seoul.

As of 2:30 p.m., some 580 officials and nine helicopters had been mobilized to put out the blaze on Mount Inwang that broke out shortly before noon. There have been no reports of deaths or injuries caused by it.

Authorities have banned entry to the mountain, with residents in nearby areas being evacuated. Some 120 households already have been evacuated.

Some 0.23 square kilometers of land, equivalent to the size of 32 football fields, have been destroyed by the wildfire.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

I have driven on this expressway many times and it is amazing that apparently an accident with a garbage truck caused a fire this big:

At least five people were killed and 37 others injured, three of them seriously, Thursday in a noise-barrier tunnel fire along an expressway in Gwacheon, just south of Seoul, fire authorities said. 

The blaze was reported to have occurred at 1:49 p.m. inside the noise tunnel in Gwacheon along the Second Gyeongin Expressway that connects the western port city of Incheon to Seongnam City, the authorities said.

Fire authorities initially announced the fire started after a collision between a bus and a garbage truck but later said they would need further investigation to determine the exact cause, leaving open the possibility that the truck alone may have been responsible for the deadly blaze.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

You would think major companies like Kakao and Naver would have a more robust back up server capabilities to have resiliency against unexpected incidents like this:

KaKao, the operator of Korea’s dominant messaging app Kakao Talk, has restored 40 percent of its data center’s servers, an executive said Sunday, as it is working to fully repair its services disrupted by a fire.

The tech giant has restored 12,000 servers out of 32,000 at its data center in the SK CC building located in Pangyo, just south of Seoul, said Yang Hyun-seo, Kakao’s vice president handling the company’s relationship with the government.

“It is hard to tell exactly how long it will take before Kakao Talk and other services can be fully restored,” she said at the site, citing a massive server loss.

Kakao has servers in Pangyo and Anyang, both in Gyeonggi Province that surrounds Seoul, as part of its risk management policy, but the fire, which has been extinguished, was unexpected, according to Kakao.

The fire broke out Saturday in the SK CC building, which houses the data centers of Kakao and the country’s leading search engine Naver, a rare accident that disrupted both tech giants’ services.

President Yoon Suk-yeol instructed officials to make efforts to ensure Kakao can quickly resume its services as he called on the company to find out the exact cause of the fire and come up with measures to avoid future disruptions of services.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link, but the Yoon administration jumping into this makes it seem like it is a national emergency. I think people can survive a day or two without a social media site and search engine service.

There was a horrible fire yesterday in Daejeon that unfortunately caused seven people to be killed:

The death toll from an outlet mall fire in the central city of Daejeon has risen to seven, with one person under medical treatment after sustaining serious injuries, officials said Monday.

The blaze at Hyundai Premium Outlet in Daejeon, about 160 kilometers south of Seoul, is believed to have started from the basement parking lot at 7:45 a.m. and spread quickly on cardboard boxes, sending dark smoke filling the entire floor, according to witnesses and survivors. The fire was completely extinguished around 3 p.m.

Two men, one in his 50s and the other in his 30s, were found with serious injuries and sent to a hospital but were later pronounced dead in the morning. Five more people were later found dead while another person was sent to a hospital after sustaining serious injuries, according to the officials.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

This is a horrible tragedy over in Daegu:

A fire apparently caused by arson killed seven people and injured 50 others at an office building in the southeastern city of Daegu on Thursday, officials said.

Police pinpointed a 53-year-old man as the suspected arsonist responsible for the blaze based on CCTV footage. The man was killed at the scene, they said.

The fire started at around 10:55 a.m. on the second floor of the five-story building housing lawyers’ offices in Daegu, about 300 kilometers south of Seoul, according to firefighting officials. 

The fire killed seven people, including an attorney and five assistants from a law office on the second floor. 

Fifty others were hurt, suffering burns and inhaling smoke, and 30 of them were sent to nearby hospitals. Many others were evacuated to safety.

Police suspect the alleged arsonist set fire to a lawyer’s office handling a case involving him.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.