한국일보
For many this case is unknown or forgotten, but it aroused a strong emotion and is considered in Korea as one of the greatest tragedies of the country and its contemporary history, with the sinking of the Sewol in 2014 and the Itaewon crowd crush in 2022. The 2003 Daegu subway fire killed 192 people and resulted in many human errors.
The main protagonist is KIM DAE HAN. Born on February 8, 1947 north of Busan, he moved quickly to Daegu, the third largest city in the country, where he worked as a truck driver, taxi driver, and then as a street worker. He married and had two children, but in 1999 was diagnosed with a severe depressive disorder, leading to two years of heavy treatment. In April 2001, following a stroke, he became hemiplegic on the right side of his body and lost his job. The first suicidal thoughts begin to emerge.
Two years later, on February 18, 2003, KIM DAE HAN is resolved: it is today that he will commit suicide, but not alone. Sad of his condition, he then thinks that it is better to take other people to death, and why not, by fire? With an empty 4L milk bottle, he went to a gas station and bought some oil, before taking the metro line No. 1 at 9:52 a.m., going on the first train No. 1079. Sitting on the seats reserved for the elderly and handicapped, holding his bottle of milk and playing with a lighter in his other hand, he quickly aroused curiosity, but also the fear of other passengers. An argument eventually broke out, then the drama. KIM DAE HAN dropped his bottle and lighter, the gasoline igniting instantly at 9:53.
As the metro enters the station, passengers rush outside, fearing for their lives, but the first mistakes happen. The fire procedure is to warn the switch tower of the presence and extent of a fire and then deal with the fire. When the fire alarm sounds, the driver does not react on the spot, because last month, 96 cases of dysfunctional fire alarms were identified. But in the face of agitation, he understands the danger and tries to put out the fire. When he saw his failure, he warned the switch tower and fled.
At 9:56 a.m., another train, No. 1080, entered the station. Upon seeing the smoke in the tunnel, the conductor of the train contacted the switch tower, which, not being aware of the seriousness of the fire, authorized him to stop at the station before leaving for his next station. A few seconds after opening the doors of his subway, and realizing the importance of the fire, he closes the doors and it is at 9:57 am that firefighters are called, four minutes after the beginning of what will quickly cause hundreds of deaths.
On the first train, No. 1079, there were 250 passengers, and 200 on the second, No. 1080. Although most of the passengers managed to escape during the brief opening of the doors, the driver of the 1080 decided to lock the doors of his train, and to leave the station with the master key, the one to unlock the doors. The 79 passengers left in the subway were condemned. Unable to open the doors, death came to meet them. It is in order to avoid a spread of fire through the electrical network that the driver decided to lock the doors, because a fire exists if a triangle of factors meets, allowing it to exist: an oxidizer (oxygen), a fuel (gasoline in this case, or the electric grid), and heat. Without one of these elements, the fire dies.
70 people will die in No. 1079 and 79 in No. 1080, mainly as a result of toxic smoke inhalation. Indeed, smoke was even more dangerous than fire, because of the fuels. Trains were manufactured using low-end, highly flammable, and highly toxic materials, such as seat liners, panels, or even metal. The fire, which had become a real boiler, reached 1000°C on both trains, at the heart of the fire. What struck the victims’ loved ones the most at the time were the many messages of farewell they received, some even breaking up in order to “release” their spouse so that they could move forward after their death.
The fire lasted twenty minutes, and in addition to the 149 direct victims on both trains, there were a total of 192 victims, 151 injured, and more than 60 missing in the commotion. The 19 hospitals in the neighborhood were all quickly overwhelmed, 84 fire trucks were called, and 1300 people came to the aid to evacuate the station and put out the fire. Indeed, in the station, 43 people also died as a result of inhalation of fumes. However, it took almost three hours to regain control of the situation, as the firefighters’ equipment was not adapted either.
Most of the victims that day were students, and there were 71 dead men, 115 women, and six whose sex could not be identified, because their bodies were too degraded following the fire. There were only bones left. For the survivors, many developed post-traumatic stress disorder, such as a woman who told journalists in a report «ten years later», that she could only take the subway twice in ten years. As for KIM DAE HAN, the moment his bottle caught fire and he ignited himself, he fled and rushed to a hospital where he was quickly arrested.
After the incident, the city of Daegu observed a minute of silence, at 9:53 to pay tribute to the moment when the fire broke out, and once the metro was renovated, set up remains like a burned telephone booth, a timeline, a memorial and a wall for the victims’ relatives to leave them messages. But KIM DAE HAN was not the only one to be worried by the justice, the two conductors, No. 1079 and No. 1080, as well as seven employees of the switch tower were arrested for serious faults that resulted in death.
The first driver did not call the second he noticed the fire, contrary to the fire procedure. Then, he did not warn of the importance of the fire, causing the second train to enter the station. The second driver was convicted of leaving the subway by locking it and keeping the master key on him when he fled. During his eleven-hour run, he called his officials to try to cover for him, and documents of the equivalent of the Korean RATP were falsified before being handed over to the police, leading to the dismissal of the director of the RATP. The latter was also considered responsible for the lack of more effective security measures and the poor reaction of its employees.
The second driver tried to defend himself during the trial, stating that when he had called the switch tower to ask what to do about seven different employees—those charged—told him to shut down the power in the subway to preserve the integrity of the train, which led to the death of 79 people, the driver having understood that he had to leave with the master key to prevent someone from restoring the power and triggering an electric fire. The state of the metro was therefore privileged over the lives of passengers.
Regarding the convictions, KIM DAE HAN was first sentenced to death in August 2003, which was reconsidered to life in imprisonment in January 2004 following a psychological assessment where he was detected a slight mental retardation. He was therefore found to be irresponsible in part because he did not realize that fire would kill so many people. However, he will barely serve his sentence, as he mysteriously died of a “squeeze” in a hospital on August 31, 2004, after expressing remorse. The employees were sentenced to between two and four years in prison, some of them conditional, and the two drivers to four and five years in prison.
As Korea learns from its mistakes, many measures have been implemented by the city of Daegu. For example, fire extinguishers were put in each subway train, as well as gas masks in the stations. Lighting instructions and floor markings were made, and automatic watering systems on the platforms inaugurated. Finally, clear and precise instructions concerning the manual opening of the doors were placed in each train, and television spots were broadcast to inform the population of the measures to be taken in case of fire. These measures were first applied in Daegu, before expanding nationally.
The president of the time, ROH MOO HYUN, set up a special unit capable of managing crises related to this kind of incident, and a cultural center opened in the city, a kind of theme park on risk prevention, as in fire, Daegu Metro is the example used, or to teach children what to do during an earthquake. Today, the Daegu fire remains one of the most significant events of the Korean 21st century, and it is only due to one mistake that led to a multitude of others: the sale of gasoline.
Indeed, in Korea it is forbidden to sell gasoline in a domestic bottle, such as milk, or water, fruit juice for example. If that day someone had banned KIM DAE HAN from buying gas, 192 people might still be alive.
Journalist: Pillet Anaïs
Translator: Pillet Anaïs
Source: KSTATION TV, On the photos
