At least 23 nursery school children died in a fire at a summer camp in Hwasung, 20 miles from Seoul, in one of the worst disasters to hit South Korea. The fire broke out early on Tuesday in a wooden dormitory housing nearly 500 children, with most victims dying of suffocation, while some were killed in the building collapse or by burns.
The blaze is believed to have been caused by an electrical short circuit on the third floor where the children were sleeping. A worker at the camp, Chun Kyong Ja, reported seeing sparks shortly before the fire and the lights going out. The fire spread rapidly to lower floors, sending hundreds of children fleeing in panic.
Teachers sleeping in a nearby building were unable to help as flames consumed the dormitory. Kim Chae Hoon, a worker, said the heat prevented entry, and children could be heard screaming. Kang Kwon Soo, head of the kindergarten that suffered the most casualties, described the scene as 'hell on earth.'
Some witnesses reported that it took half an hour for firefighters to arrive, hampered by a narrow lane. The building had only two narrow staircases, and part of the structure collapsed during the blaze. Firefighters used 50 tenders and took nearly three hours to extinguish the fire.
Parents gathered at the hospital to learn fates; some bodies were burnt beyond recognition, requiring DNA testing. Police faced outrage over claims children were left unaccompanied, and investigations found some fire extinguishers were not working. The camp had opened only four months ago for a two-day summer programme.
This tragedy adds to South Korea's poor safety record, which is considered the worst in the industrialised world, following a construction site fire in Pusan that killed 27, a department store collapse in Seoul that killed over 500, and a bridge collapse that killed 100.
