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Firefighters
work as smoke billows from a hospital in Miryang, South Korea, Friday, Jan. 26,
2018. The hospital fire causes scores of casualties and injuries, according to
a fire agency official. (National Fire Agency/Yonhap via AP)
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A fire spread flames and
smoke through a South Korean hospital Friday morning, killing at least 39
people, mainly from suffocation, and injuring more than 100 others in one of
the country's deadliest blazes in years.
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A
person injured in a fire is carried from a hospital in Miryang, South Korea,
Friday, Jan. 26, 2018. The hospital fire causes scores of casualties and
injuries, according to a fire agency official. (Kim Dong-mi/Yonhap via AP)
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The
fire started in Sejong Hospital's emergency room and had engulfed the first
floor when firefighters arrived. They approached the second floor through the
windows to rescue trapped patients, said Choi Man-wu, a fire official in the
southeastern city of Miryang.
He
said smoke could have spread quickly through the building's staircase at the
center, but the flames were extinguished before reaching the third floor. The
cause of the fire wasn't immediately known. The hospital's operations were
suspended after the fire.
All
the dead were from the hospital's general ward, while all 94 people being cared
for in a nursing ward for the elderly were safely evacuated after the fire,
some carried on the backs of firefighters, Choi said.
Ten
of the injured are in critical condition, local medical official Cheon
Jae-kyung said in the same televised briefing, suggesting the toll is feared to
increase. Fire officials said 131 were injured, 18 of them in serious
condition.
Most
of the dead had been hospitalized for respiratory diseases in an intensive-care
unit on the second floor. Two doctors and nine nurses were working in the
emergency room at the time of fire, but their fates weren't immediately known.
Most
of the 39 deaths appeared to be due to suffocation, with only one suffering
burns, said an official at the National Fire Agency who spoke on condition of
anonymity because he wasn't authorized to speak to media. The identification of
the dead was underway, he said.
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Firefighters
work as smoke billows from a hospital in Miryang, South Korea, Friday, Jan. 26,
2018. The hospital fire causes scores of casualties and injuries, according to
a fire agency official. (National Fire Agency /Yonhap via AP)
|
President
Moon Jae-in expressed regret over the blaze at an emergency meeting convened
with his senior advisers. He ordered officials to provide necessary medical
supports to those rescued, find the exact cause of the fire and work out
measures to prevent future fires, according to his spokesman Park Su-hyun.
South
Korea is one of the fastest-aging countries in the world and has many nursing
hospitals, which are preferred for elderly people who need long-term doctors'
care.
Several
recent fires in South Korea have been deadly.
In
late December, 29 people were killed in a building fire in central Seoul, which
was the country's deadliest blaze over the past decade before the hospital
fire. Last weekend, a fire at a Seoul motel killed six people, and police arrested
a man who allegedly set it ablaze in anger because he had been denied a room
for being heavily drunk.
In 2014, a fire set by an 81-year-old dementia patient killed 21 at another hospital for the elderly.
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