More than 200 feared dead in subway attack

More than 200 people were feared dead today after a man, who had threatened arson before, started a fire on an underground train in South Korea’s third-largest city.

Officials said 130 bodies had been recovered and 99 people were still missing hours after the attack.

Firefighters said dozens of charred bodies still lay in the wreckage of two trains that were engulfed in Daegu, one of last year’s football World Cup venues.

Chung Sook-jae, 54, raced to the scene after her daughter, Min Shim-eun, 26, called her husband to say she was suffocating. Then the line went dead.

“She never caused any problems. She was a good kid. Why does this have to happen her?” Chung said, tears rolling down her face.

“If she’s not out by now, she’s probably dead. What am I going to do if her body is all burned out of recognition?”

Kim Bok-sun, 45, said her missing daughter, 21-year-old Kang Yeon-ju, was on the burning train and had telephoned her in panic.

“She only said that there was a fire and the train door wasn’t opening, so I told her to just break open a window and get out,” she said, her voice trembling with emotion.

Kim called her daughter back a few minutes later, “but she never answered the phone.”

The fire started in one six-carriage train at a station, igniting seats and spreading to another train also stopped at the station.

More than 130 people were rushed to hospitals around Daegu, 200 miles south-east of the capital Seoul.

A man was arrested, but police said they had no clue what his motive was.

Witnesses said Kim Dae-han, 56, was carrying a milk carton filled with flammable material when he boarded the train.

One witness described the terrifying scene as the fire ignited.

“The man kept flickering a lighter and an old man told him to stop. The man dropped the lighter and the train caught fire,” one male survivor said.

“Several young men seized him, but the fire spread and black smoke rose. Then everyone rushed out.”

“When the man tried to use a cigarette lighter to light the box, some passengers tied to stop him. Apparently a scuffle erupted and the box exploded into flames,” a police spokesman said.

Firefighters took three hours to extinguish the blaze, which sent thick black smoke pouring from the entrance of one station.

Park Chang-shik, a 45-year-old firefighter, described the horrific scenes he found in the station: bodies of victims choked as they fled for safety and the ash-white bones of those who died in the flames.

“There were white bones scattered on the floor mixed with people’s burned belongings – there was even a skull,” he said, soot caked his face. “I brought up four bodies. They were lying on the stairs. I didn’t even have time to feel terrible.”

Officials said 3,200 people, including more than 2,000 firefighters and police, had been mobilised to fight the blaze and rescue victims.

Another fireman, 34-year-old Chun Tae-ryong, rushed in and out of the scorched tunnel more than a dozen times in a desperate bid to save people.

“Everything that can be burned has been burned, the chairs and everything,” he said. “I brought out five people. Three were alive when I rescued them, but I don’t know what happened to them. They were making noises but could not talk.”

TV footage showed the charred frames of the train carriages. The seats in were burned away, revealing their steel frames, and the station platform was strewn with discarded shoes and other belongings.

Toxic gas in the tunnel delayed rescue efforts. The acrid smell of burned plastic wafted over the scene hours after the flames had been put out.

TV showed footage of the chaotic scenes at a nearby hospital, apparently showing the suspect being treated by nurses.

He sat frowning on a bed wearing a hospital smock, his face and hands smudged from soot from the fire. Police said Kim had been burned on both legs and on his right wrist.

TV said the suspect worked as truck driver and had once threatened to burn down a hospital where he had received unsatisfactory treatment

Hundreds of desperate relatives and local residents stood behind the police line at street level, fending off the acrid gas with handkerchieves.

Kim Dae-wook, 30, was looking for his mother Seok Palchundae.

“She always takes the subway at this time to buy groceries. She doesn’t have a mobile phone,” he said. ”I’ve been to five hospitals and checked all the dead or missing lists, but couldn’t find her name.”

President Kim Dae-jung ordered the government to consider designating the accident site as a special disaster zone, giving it priority in getting government aid and other assistance.

Daegu, one of the 10 World Cup football venues last year, is home to 2.5 million people. The city is also a venue for this year’s World University Games on August 21-31.

In 1995, a gas explosion in an underground railway construction site in the city killed 101 people and injured 143 others.

In South Korea’s last major fire disaster, 55 people were killed in a beer hall in Incheon, near Seoul, in October 1999.