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Relatives wait as train fire's death toll mounts

A relative of a victim of a suspected arson attack cries as he sees damaged trains at the Wol-bae subway depot in Daegu, South Korea, yesterday. At least 126 people were killed and over 300 were missing after flames and smoke engulfed two crowded subway trains Tuesday following an arson attack, officials said. PHOTO: REUTERS

South Korean relatives waited in agony yesterday for word on hundreds missing and believed incinerated in a subway arson attack that killed at least 126 people and reduced two trains to skeletons.

Anger grew over the deaths and the more than 340 people listed missing in a tragedy that has raised questions over safety standards and the ferocity of the inferno.

Grieving relatives in Daegu, 300km southeast of Seoul, demanded the mayor talk to them and apologize as the city of 2.6 million flew flags at half-mast for five days of mourning.

At the centre of controversy was why a driver kept the doors of his train shut after he pulled into a Daegu subway station alongside another train already ablaze.

A middle-aged man tossed a milk carton full of flaming liquid into a crowded carriage of the first train, engulfing it in minutes. The fire then spread to the adjoining train, rescue officials said.

But domestic media quoted them as saying the second train sat for 20 minutes with its doors locked and toll was thought to be highest there.

Other questions bubbled to the surface as police took in the driver of the second train, forensic experts began the grim job of identifying charred victims and the list of missing grew to 343. Some of the missing could be among the unidentified bodies.

Relatives and the media asked how the blaze spread so quickly and whether subway officials reacted quickly enough to save more people from an inferno which sent black, acrid smoke belching into the sky for hours.

Security cameras caught the arsonist, identified by city officials as a 56-year-old former taxi driver with a history of mental problems, with the blazing milk carton in his hand and people trying to take it from him.

The grainy footage, broadcast on television, showed other passengers on the platform and on the train looking stunned.

As the official toll grew to 53 identified dead, 72 unidentified remains and 146 injured, stories emerged of a anxious mobile telephone calls to friends and relatives when the blaze took hold and smoke spread.

Telephone companies were helping people, desperately hoping against hope, to confirm whether relatives had been on the trains or elsewhere in the station by tracing mobile phone signals.

One man told South Korean television his wife made a desperate call as the inferno took hold.

"Help me," he quoted her as saying. "There's a fire on the subway. The door is locked."

Other relatives were left clinging only to the hope that a bone or tooth of their loved ones could be found among the thick layer of ash in the carriages. A senior fire official said it would take months to identify many of the victims.

Hopelessness hit home for about 300 families of the missing gathered in an auditorium 1km from the site as they watched a videotape of the fire scene that showed the burned-out shell of the trains.

"There's nothing left," shrieked an elderly woman. "Where can I find the body of my son?" she said above the sobs of hundreds like her.

Taegu Mayor Cho Hae-nyoung met nine representatives from the bereaved families, promising to address their demands for more information and to join in the search for remains.

That was not enough for the angry relatives left outside.

"Come out and talk to us all! Apologize!" they shouted.

President-elect Roh Moo-hyun, who takes office next week, was to visit Taegu today.

There was much handwringing about lapses in a country with one of the worst traffic and industrial safety records of any advanced economy as the government declared Taegu a special disaster zone eligible for tax breaks and state aid.

The Korea Times lamented an "absolute lack of safety education" for people in emergencies, like the estimated 400 people aboard the trains, each with six carriages in which almost everything was melted by the intense heat.

"The passengers could not do anything except panic with no one attempting to use the fire extinguishers placed under the seat," it said.

Other newspapers raised questions about the speed at which materials on the trains burst into flames and an apparent lack of communication equipment and alarms -- some of the many safety issues likely to come up after the disaster.

Rescue official Lee Hyong-kyun said the fire ignited seats and floor tiles. "There would have been hardly any time to escape," he said.
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