FACULTY OF HEALTH & SPORTS SCIENCE

BACHELOR OF ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH & SAFETY

(HONS)

MASTERCLASS
FIRE SAFETY

INDIVIDUAL ASSIGNMENT

NAME : GERARD B.Y LINGGOU

MATRIX NUMBER : BEHP19096825
GROUP : COHORT 14 FLEXI
LECTURER : DR. NOOR HAZIQAH KAMALUDIN
 DAEGU SUBWAY STATION FIRE, SOUTH KOREA

1.0 INTRODUCTION

The incident happened on 18 February 2003, where a fire breakout at the Jungangno Station of
the Daegu Metropolitan Subway in Daegu, South Korea caused by an arsonist which killed 192
people and injured 151 others. The fire blaze engulfed the six-car train before spreading to
another train that pulled into station. The perpetrator was a 57 years old man, believed to be
mentally unbalanced at the time of the incident. The failure and negligent of fire safety have
caused the fire not extinguished not until after three hours of the incident. The incident caused
an economic loss around 500 billion won (around 18 million ringgit). This case study

2.0 OBJECTIVE

2.1 General Objective

To conduct case study regarding Daegu Subway Station Fire, South Korea involving the fire
safety during the accident.

2.2 Specific Objective

1. To describe the correct action that have been taken in this case and the factors contributr to
worsening this situation.

2. To describe the type of fire that involve in this fire accident and extinguish agent that can
be used to stop the fire.

3. To describe the fire device that can be installed and prevention measure to avoid from this
incident happened again.

4. To describe the factors causes the fire quickly spreading

3.0 METHOD OF SEARCH

The searches of published literature regarding Daegu Subway Station Fire were conduct using
following database such as Google Scholar, ResearchGate, ScienceDirect, and Google.com.
Searches of case study was run by using keywords including “Daegu Subway Station”, “case
study”, “South Korea” and “fire safety”. Based on the database used to search for articles, a
screening was done to identify and determine the information relevance to specific objective.

4.0 INCIDENT OF FIRE

The major fire incident started when the 56 years old arsonist set a fire on the train No. 1079
with two cartons of gasoline (around 4 litres) with intention of committing suicide on 09:53
hours. The arsonist managed to escape from train No. 1079 just as the train burst in flames
(NEMA, 2004). The fire spread quickly throughout the carriage due to interior material of the
train are highly flammable, where the floor, seats and ceiling act as fuel source. As the fire
continues, another train No. 1080 arrived on the opposite of the track and without the
appropriate precaution the fire spread from No. 1079 to No. 1080. Power failure cause only a
few doors of the train to open, and the fire killed all passengers trapped inside of both the train.

4.0 ACTION TAKEN DURING INCIDENT

The lack of sufficient fire-fighting equipment, a faulty ventilation system, failure of the backup
power system, poor reaction of subway staff and the negligence of traffic control official
contributed to the casualties. The subway staff is not trained for this type of incident. The
subway staff on duty ignored the initial fire alarms as the device was frequently malfunction,
and as a result insufficient initial response cause from a simple arson to unimaginable huge
incident. The No. 1079 driver tried to extinguish the fire but failed to do so and then escaped
from the train without informing to control center about the. One of the staff member reported
the incident to control center but still failed to alerted the Daegu fire department.

The No. 1080 driver negligence to safety management and poor judgement by control
center staff cause the death of the passenger. The control center staff does not prevent the No.
1080 driver from entering the platform, and driver closed the train door to avoid heavy smoke
from opposite fire outbreak. The passenger lost their escape time during the time. The train No.
1080 driver

The communication system of the station was out of order, are the train No. 1080 was
commanded to get away from the station but power supply had been cut off caused by fire
detector system. The driver waiting for further instruction and order from control center, he
was advised to fled from the train, and before fled the master key of the train was removed to
kill the engine and by doing so the onboard batteries that powered train doors was shut down
and passengers of No. 1080 failed to leave. This serious ramification caused around 79 people
killed in train No. 1080.

The passenger around the platform also did not familiar with the escape route and no
use of fire extinguisher during the incident. As result passenger suffocated and died on subway
stairs as they tried to escaped. Because of the heavy black smoke and toxic gases during the
incident, the fire fighters couldn’t enter the station. The fire was extinguished at 13:30 hours
but the rescue commenced around 15:30 hours to recover dead bodies.

5.0 FACTOR CONTRIBUTING TO INCIDENT

NO. FACTOR
1. Train designed by the manufacturer with flammable material
2. Untrained subway personal in case of emergency
3. Closed environment, as the subway in underground
4. Lack of fire extinguisher equipment at the platform
5. Power backup failure
6. Faulty ventilation system, automatic fire detectors, sprinkler and fire wall
7. Poor judgement of control center
8. Fire extinguisher on train was put inside cabinet at the end of train

6.0 PREVENTION

Crisis simulation exercises is integral part of emergency planning process as it provided

necessary skills and management to pre-arranged scenario done through repeating rehearsals
annually. Through these exercises, it can help the subway staff to be skillful and know their
roles in case of emergencies.

The basic of fire safety should also be trained to passenger especially among the subway
staff. Fire safety system need to undergoes regular maintenance to ensure functionality and fire
extinguisher equipment should be place in visible area for use either by the staff or passenger
to start initial fire control from spreading.
 The most important role in preventing this incident is under the official from control
center, as they act as the command center in case of emergency ranging from convey
information to subway staff, alerting the authorities of emergency and control the situation to
prevent panic among other staffs and passenger.

7.0 DISCUSSION

The National Assembly announce for establishment of National Transportation Safety

Committee related to disaster management and enactment of the Railroad Safety Law in
response to the fire incident. This was the necessary step for a disaster management if the
incident may occur in the future. As for the train interiors, easily flammable materials should
not be used as it can lead to a rapid fire growth and spread.

The flammable material in the train caused a dense dark and poisonous smoke generated
from burning and thus reduce the ability of the victim to escape, and this is what happened in
Daegu Station Fire incident as the smoke incapacitated victim mobility and suffocated them.
The most important thing in fire safety are fire control system, but it failed during the time of
the incident. This showed that the control officials at the station guilty of negligence in their
emergency and fire safety system.

8.0 CONCLUSION

The incident is the result of ineffective disaster management process in response to a

crisis situation. Though reflecting and understanding the incident, a set of practices and
procedure in managing such incident should be established to prevent it from happened again
and have the potential to save more lives.
4.0 REFERENCE

Lee, Myungsung & Hur, Nahmkeon. (2012). A detailed CFD simulation of the 2003 Daegu
metro station fire. International Journal of Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration. 20. Retrieved
from http://dx.doi.org/10.1142/S2010132512500149

History.com Editors (2009). Arsonist sets fire in South Korean subway. A&E Television
Networks. The Day In History : February 18. Retrieved from https://www.history.com/this-
day-in-history/arsonist-sets-fire-in-south-korean-subway

Hakkyong Kim (2011). Dealing with crises : A Comparative Study of Simulation Exercises in
Korea and the UK. PHD in Risk & Crisis Management. Retrieved from
https://researchportal.port.ac.uk/portal/files/5922446/PhD_Thesis_Hakkyong_Kim_Portsmou
th_.pdf

C. Liang, J. You, W. Jiang, C. Yang. and G. Fu (2017). Behavior and Psychology of Daegu
Subway Fire Accident in Korea. Proceedings of the 2017 International Conference on
Management Science and Management Innovation (MSMI 2017), Atlantis Press. Retrieved
from https://dx.doi.org/10.2991/msmi-17.2017.56

NEMA (National Emergency Management Agency) (2004). Disaster reports: Fire in Daegu
Subway. Retrieved from http://www.nema.go.kr/eng/m4_subway.jsp

Kim, Jong-Hwan. (2011). A Study on the Organizational Learning of the Disaster Management
Organizations: the Cases of Daegu Subway. Journal of the Korea Society of Computer and
Information, 16(10), 211-218. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.9708/jksci.2011.16.10.211

Hong, Won-Hwa. (2004). The progress and controlling Situation of Daegu Subway Fire
Disaster. Urban Environmental System & Research Lab, Department of Architectural
Engineering, Kyungpook National University, Daegu, 701-702, Korea. Retrieved from
https://iafss.org/publications/aofst/6/s-5/view/aofst_6.pdf