A hearth at a lithium battery manufacturing facility close to Seoul on Monday killed 22 employees, most of them migrant laborers from China, in one of many deadliest blazes in South Korea in years, officers mentioned.
Officers mentioned that rescuers had been nonetheless looking the constructing in Hwaseong, 28 miles south of Seoul, for one employee who had been reported lacking. They mentioned it was unclear whether or not the employee was within the constructing when the fireplace broke out.
Two employees had been hospitalized with critical accidents. Six others suffered minor accidents.
Kim Jin-young, an official with the Hwaseong Fireplace Division, mentioned 102 folks had been working within the manufacturing facility, owned by the battery maker Aricell, when the fireplace broke out. The 22 victims included 18 migrants from China and one from Laos, in addition to two South Koreans.
They had been discovered useless on the 12,500-square foot second ground of the manufacturing facility. The ground had two unlocked exit staircases main outdoors, however the employees appeared to have been overcome by the flames and poisonous smoke earlier than reaching them, Mr. Kim mentioned.
Staff who fled the fireplace mentioned it began when a single battery cell caught hearth, triggering a collection of explosions amongst a few of the 35,000 lithium battery cells saved on the manufacturing facility’s second ground, in keeping with Mr. Kim.
Fires can happen in lithium batteries when the within layers are compressed, inflicting a brief circuit. The layers can grow to be compressed by a sudden influence, corresponding to throughout a automobile collision, or by gradual swelling of the batteries by common use.
Lithium is a metallic that may retailer giant quantities of power in a small house, which is why it’s engaging as a battery materials. However that additionally means there’s a lot power accessible to show into warmth and even flames in case of a brief circuit. Lithium battery fires have been a rising downside in the US and elsewhere, and fires are an industrywide concern for battery producers.
Aricell, the Hwaseong plant’s proprietor, makes batteries which might be usually used to run electrical energy and different utilities networks.
Intense flames, poisonous smoke and the danger of additional explosions hampered firefighters’ efforts to seek for the lacking employees on Monday. Tv footage from the fireplace confirmed giant flames and thick clouds of smoke billowing from the manufacturing facility. Footage taken after the fire had been extinguished confirmed the constructing scorched, with its roof caved in.
Greater than 160 firefighters, together with 60 hearth engines, rushed to include the fireplace. President Yoon Suk Yeol known as on his authorities to “mobilize all accessible human assets and gear.”
The blaze was the deadliest in South Korea since a hearth at a building web site southeast of Seoul killed 38 folks in 2020.
Although South Korea is understood for its cutting-edge expertise and manufacturing, the nation has lengthy been suffering from man-made disasters, together with fires.
In 2018, almost 50 folks, most of them aged sufferers, died inhaling poisonous smoke in a hearth at a hospital that lacked sprinklers. In 2017, 29 folks had been killed in a hearth at a fitness center and public bathtub complicated. In 2008, 40 employees, together with migrant employees, died in a hearth at a cold-storage warehouse underneath building.
