According to the police, an explosion that occurred on Thursday at the offices of a legal company in the city of Daegu in the southern region of South Korea caused a fire, which in turn wounded scores of other individuals. At least seven people were killed in the incident.
According to the police, an investigation into whether or not the fire was intentionally started is underway, and a man in his 50s has been named as a suspect in the case. The video from the security cameras indicated that the individual had passed away at the location, according to the police. It took some time before anybody recognised him.
No information regarding a probable motivation was immediately disclosed, although local news sites stated that the police were examining if the fire had been caused by an angry client over a case.
An official with the police department in Daegu, which is around 270 kilometres (approximately 170 miles) from Seoul, the nation’s capital, said that the fire started at approximately 10:55 a.m. at a seven-story office building near to Daegu District Court. According to Yonhap News Agency, the police said that they were made aware of reports of a loud explosion and black smoke emerging from the premises of the legal business.
The fire was put out by over 150 firemen who responded to the scene, along with almost 60 fire vehicles. It took them approximately 20 minutes to do so. According to the authorities, the firefighters were able to rescue around forty individuals from the burning structure.
In recent years, South Korea has been the scene of a series of high-profile fires, some of which have been related to a lowering of the country’s already deficient safety standards. At April of 2020, a fire that broke out in a warehouse in Icheon, which is located southeast of Seoul, claimed the lives of 38 employees. At October of same year, another fire broke out in an apartment complex located in a high-rise structure in the city of Ulsan, which resulted in the forced evacuation of hundreds of residents. At 2018, 37 people lost their lives as a result of a fire that broke out in a hospital in the city of Miryang, which also functioned as a nursing home.
In 1995, gas leaks at Daegu construction sites triggered off explosions and fires that killed at least 100 people, many of them youngsters.
