Yesterday, a tragic fire broke out in a soundproof tunnel in South Korea.
html At around 1:49 pm on the 129th, a fire broke out in a soundproof tunnel on the Gyeongin 2nd Expressway in Gwacheon City, Gyeonggi Province, South Korea.
Initially there was news that a bus and a truck had a car accident and the collision caused the fire.
But later the fire department confirmed that the first fire was a 5-ton garbage recycling truck.
The front wheel and cab of the garbage recycling truck caught fire, igniting the garbage in the compartment.
The flames jumped upwards and soon ignited the walls and ceiling of the soundproof tunnel.
For a moment, the tunnel was filled with flames, and hundreds of meters of the tunnel were engulfed in flames.
Black smoke billowed from the scene, and thick smoke came out from both ends of the tunnel.
The fire spread quickly along the walls and ceiling. The sound insulation material above melted under the high temperature. Sparks fell like raindrops and ignited other vehicles in the tunnel.
The drivers abandoned their cars and ran for their lives, braving thick smoke and running towards the outside of the tunnel.
The local fire department received the alarm immediately after the fire and arrived at the scene 18 minutes later.
A tow truck driver involved in the rescue said: "When I arrived at the scene, the fire had spread to the entrance of the tunnel, and even the fire truck couldn't get in."
"Most people didn't care about anything and just ran for their lives."
Another rescue worker Said: "It was like Ha Jung-woo 's movie "The Tunnel"."
The fire department dispatched a total of 98 fire vehicles, 259 firefighters and 3 fire helicopters. They spent more than 2 hours fighting the fire and completely extinguished the fire at around 4:12 p.m.
At the same time, the police implemented two-way control on the soundproof tunnel, allowing vehicles that have not yet entered the tunnel to bypass, causing serious congestion around the tunnel.
After the fire, the fire department received more than 200 alarm calls from drivers and nearby residents.
According to the current information released by the fire department, the fire has killed 5 people (some reports said it was 6, but it seems that due to the chaos at the scene, there are repeated statistics , the confirmed death toll is still 5);
people were seriously injured, all with facial injuries, including facial burns, and the condition was relatively critical;
6 people were slightly injured, and all received treatment for smoke inhalation, and 21 people have gone home after receiving on-site first aid.
Among them, the five victims were found in 3 cars and 1 SUV passing by. All 4 vehicles were driving in the opposite direction of the garbage recycling truck.
The fire department analyzed that the victims died of suffocation caused by heavy smoke.
At around 6 pm on the day of the incident, the bodies of the five victims were sent to the emergency room of Hallym University Hospital in Pyeongchon-dong, Goyang City, Gyeonggi Province. The emergency room was filled with the cries of the families of the victims.
htmlThe 166-year-old victim, Mr. Jeon, completed his work in Seoul and unfortunately encountered a fire when he returned to his home in Gyeonggi-do.
His wife and one daughter rushed to the hospital at 8:56 that night and met up with his other daughter who had arrived earlier. The mother and daughter hugged each other and cried as soon as they met.
"Your father must have felt so hot before he got out of the car!"
Mr. Quan's wife cried so hard that she couldn't stand and was supported by her daughters.
The family did not want to believe that Mr. Quan had died, and repeatedly asked the staff to confirm: "This is not my dad! This is not my dad, right?"
A son-in-law of Mr. Quan said: " My father-in-law called around 2 o'clock in the afternoon, saying that there was a fire, and then he could not be contacted."
" Now we can't even identify him with our fingerprints. We can only confirm that this is my father-in-law through the license plate number issued to us by the police. "
Due to the serious damage to the body, it is no longer identifiable. DNA testing is required to further confirm the identity, and the results will be available in a day or two.
Mr. Quan's wife was busy making phone calls to inform other family members of her husband's death: "xxx, your brother-in-law is dead! "
When being interviewed by reporters, they cried and said,
"This is so unfair to us, but what can we do? "
"Who should we ask to explain? Is it the fault of the driver of the garbage truck? "
A friend who has known Mr. Quan for 40 years was also shocked and speechless by the sudden news.
"This friend of mine is a driver and he wants to drive a taxi. "
"He envied me for having a private taxi license plate..."
Around 9:10 p.m., the injured Mr. Zhao came out of the emergency room of the hospital and saw his family members who came over.
His head was wrapped Wearing a bandage, the back of his hand was severely burned, and his left earlobe was almost melted.
Mr. Zhao works in the construction industry. After completing his work in Incheon, he drove back with his colleagues.
He told reporters: "We were driving and suddenly saw smoke coming from the tunnel. "
" The car suddenly became very hot and was burned. When I opened the car door and came out, I heard a popping sound. "
"I ran out with another colleague, but he couldn't escape, only me came out..."
After the fire broke out, it quickly became news of concern across South Korea.
Many people wanted to know where the fire started. The reasons for this incident and who should be responsible for this tragedy.
The police have questioned the driver of the garbage recycling truck that first caught fire.
Driver A (anonymous in the report), 63 years old, told the police,
“I was driving halfway, and suddenly there was a ‘bang bang bang’ sound from under the car. "
"I pulled over to the shoulder because the engine started to smoke and then caught fire. "
A said that he was wronged for causing the fire.
"The fire was not caused by my negligence. "
" If I started the fire, why would I try to put out the fire with a fire extinguisher? ”
(Video of the garbage recycling truck catching fire)
Immediately after the garbage recycling truck caught fire, a large amount of thick smoke was produced. The passing drivers could not see the road clearly and had to slow down. A vehicle collision also occurred in the thick smoke.
According to witnesses at the scene, the situation suddenly became urgent after the fire spread to the walls and ceiling of the tunnel.
A 53-year-old driver Li Xianxi (transliteration) who escaped from the scene said: "I saw a red light on the car in front, and suddenly there was a loud noise, and the entire tunnel turned black. "
" I couldn't see anything around me. I groped for the direction of the car window and crawled out of the car. "
In fact, this soundproof tunnel is equipped with blockade and isolation facilities.
The staff in the control room can observe where the emergency situation occurs through closed-circuit television, and then start the system,
Lower the warning lights and curtain-like facilities to block vehicles in both directions and reduce losses.
After the fire, the highway management company tried to activate this facility,
However, 10 minutes after the fire, the fire caused the power supply to the tunnel to be interrupted. This emergency facility failed and failed to play its intended role.
A highway company manager confirmed in a telephone interview with the media: "The blockade facilities require manual operation and are not automatic."
Because no warning was received, some vehicles had already entered the tunnel before discovering the fire in the tunnel.
Some vehicles were evacuated in time by reversing, but most of the vehicles in the tunnel were blocked. When the drivers saw that the situation was not good, they had no choice but to abandon their vehicles and run away.
Finally, a total of 45 vehicles were burned in the fire area.
It snowed locally last night. In the photos of the fire scene today, you can see that these scrapped vehicles were covered with snow.
Their tires were burned, leaving only a pair of sub-frames, and there were a lot of broken glass scattered on the road.
The soundproof tunnel where the fire broke out was built in September 2017. It is a two-way six-lane with a total length of about 830 meters.
600 meters of it disappeared in the fire. The soundproofing materials on the walls and ceiling have been burned, leaving only the skeleton.
Many survivors of the fire mentioned that
the sound insulation materials produced a large amount of thick smoke after catching fire, and the tunnel was like a "gas chamber."
The fire department also judged that the victims died of suffocation due to heavy smoke.
A survivor also said that because there were towels and bottled water in the car, he covered his mouth and nose with a wet towel and ran about 100 meters before luckily escaping from the tunnel.
Now, these sound insulation materials, which produce a large amount of smoke after being ignited, have become one of the focuses of the investigation.
There are about 3,000 apartments and other buildings near this tunnel. This soundproof tunnel was built to prevent the noise from driving vehicles on the highway from disturbing the residents.
The walls and ceiling of the tunnel form a vault and are covered with soundproofing material.
The sound insulation material used in the tunnel is polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA), is also the familiar acrylic .
The advantage of this material is that it is light weight, convenient for transportation and construction, and cheaper than the more advanced tempered glass material, and is widely used in buildings.
But its shortcomings are also obvious. Acrylic is flammable and will produce toxic gases when ignited.
Professor Qi Zhenzhu (transliteration) of Chongsil Network University majoring in fire and disaster prevention said,
"Acrylic is a widely used material. It is highly transparent and easy to form, but its biggest weakness is that it easily catches fire."
In this fire, the sound insulation material acted like an ignition agent and produced a large amount of toxic gases.
There are no ventilation windows in this tunnel. Except for the entrances and exits at both ends, the tunnel forms a relatively closed space.
When a fire occurs, heat and thick smoke cannot be discharged, which undoubtedly increases the destructiveness.
This is not the first time that similar soundproof tunnel fires have occurred in South Korea.
In August 2020, in a 500-meter soundproof tunnel in Gwanggyo New Town, South Korea, a car caught fire and ignited the tunnel ceiling, burning 200 meters of the tunnel.
According to Korean media reports, in the road design standard manual formulated by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport of South Korea, the 2009 version
stipulates the material standards for sound insulation facilities, including soundproof tunnels.
The standard requires that the materials on the outside of the tunnel must be non-combustible or non-flammable, and the sound-absorbing material inside must be self-extinguishing, so that no flame will be generated in the event of a fire.
However, this requirement was deleted from the road design standard manual launched in 2012.
There are only provisions on sound insulation and noise reduction, but no provisions on fire protection.
Such neglect of safety design standards may be one of the reasons for similar disasters.
Currently, the driver A of the garbage recycling truck has been sued for negligent death.
The Gyeonggi Province Southern Police Office has established an investigation team of about 50 people and is investigating the specific cause of the garbage recycling truck fire and other issues.
This morning, the police began a joint on-site investigation with the National Institute of Scientific Investigation and the fire department.
This stretch of road is expected to be closed for several days for the investigation.
I hope that those injured in the fire can escape danger as soon as possible.
I also hope that the investigation results can give an explanation to the families of the victims,
and serve as a warning to avoid similar disasters...
