http://abcnews.go.com/sections/world/Tr ... ubway.html


[quote:5ce49]The mayor of the southeastern city of Taegu said a 56-year-old male with a history of mental illness was suspected of starting the blaze at the end of the morning rush hour.
A witness said the man had set fire to flammable liquid in a milk carton and tossed it into a carriage full of commuters.

Officials said a second train pulled into the station as the first train burst into flames. The two trains, each with six carriages, had a total of up to 400 people on board.

Many struggled in vain to escape the inferno that reduced the trains to metal skeletons and sent black, acrid smoke belching into the sky for hours after the fire started.

Taegu Fire Chief Kim Shin-dong told reporters there were more than 70 unidentified charred bodies in the burned-out subway cars, which together with an official figure of 49 dead from hospitals took the toll to around 120.

Number changed throughout the day, with many bodies burnt so badly they were impossible to identify immediately.

An official at the Taegu Emergency Rescue Center had earlier told Reuters 134 people had died. Scores of people were still unaccounted for and feared dead.

Television footage showed rescuers covering up charred bodies in the ash and soot-filled carriages and a burnt shoe among the wreckage. At street level, relatives and friends gathered anxiously to look through a list of names or held each other and just cried.

At a makeshift memorial center 0.6 miles from the site, more than 250 bereaved family members gathered, some yelling and even cursing at city officials.

"No one from the city administration came out to explain what has happened 12 hours after the fire," an elderly man said.

"Money is the culprit. I lost my son because he is poor and he had to take the subway to commute," said Kim Hye-sook, 56, who said her 22-year-old son was missing.

The number of injured on a board at the emergency center was put at 135, with 159 missing. It was unclear whether the missing included the 70 corpses the fire chief said were still in the trains.

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

As dense smoke billowed from subway air vents, soot-covered firefighters in orange suits and with breathing apparatus dragged bodies and the injured up blackened stairwells.

‘Mother, There’s Smoke Everywhere’

One man, whose wife was trapped by the inferno, told South Korean television he had received a desperate call from her mobile phone.

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

It was a heart-wrenching call others also made.

"My daughter called me twice at 9.57 a.m. crying 'mother there's smoke everywhere, but the door won't open'," said a woman at a makeshift crisis center outside Taegu's Joongangro Station.

Rescue officials said they would tow the carriages to a hub station this evening so forensic experts could examine victims' remains.

A fireman in Taegu, which is 120 miles southeast of Seoul, said the trains had been gutted.

"Everything is gone," said Sung Bo-hun, who was inside the subway until 7.40 p.m. "You can't recognize the people inside. It is all black and gray."

Telephone firms were helping people find out if their relatives had been on the trains by tracing cell phone signals.

Passengers Struggle With Attacker

Yonhap news agency quoted one witness as saying passengers had tried in vain to tackle the suspect in today's blaze. Another said many passengers were trapped behind closed doors.

South Korean President Kim Dae-jung sent his condolences to the families of victims. Prime Minister Kim Suk-soo was to hold an emergency meeting with key government officials.

The single subway line runs through the central part of Taegu, a well-established center for the textile and dyeing industry as well as fashion. A second subway line is being built.

More than 100 people were killed and another 100 injured in a gas explosion on Taegu's subway line in 1995.

Kim Mi-ja, a 45-year-old housewife, stood outside the station, her eyes bloodshot from crying.

"I've been here all day waiting to hear anything about my older sister. I don't know how something like this could happen." [/quote:5ce49]

hake:

My deepest sympathy for the victim's family.

[$ilent-$paghetti]

___RIP___

[guarnere]

that sucks

[Sergeant_Scrotum]

a little late arent ya? that happened like a day ago...

[[DAS REICH] Blitz]

hake: