Death toll in South Korean battery factory fire rises to 22

June 24 (UPI) – According to the fire department, at least 22 workers, mostly Chinese, were killed in a fire at a lithium battery factory in Hwaseong, south of Seoul, on Monday. This could be the worst accident in a chemical factory in the country.

The death toll could rise further, according to authorities, as one of them disappeared during the lockdown.

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By 6:30 p.m., 22 workers had been killed, two seriously injured and six slightly injured.

Among the confirmed dead were 20 foreigners – 18 Chinese, one Laotian and another whose nationality was unknown, it said.

The fire broke out at around 10:30 a.m. at lithium battery maker Aricell’s plant in Hwaseong, 45 kilometers south of Seoul, authorities said. Firefighters entered the building to search for the missing person after the main blaze was under control at around 3:10 p.m.

The dead were all found on the second floor of the factory building No. 3. Further details about the dead are yet to be confirmed. Since the bodies were badly damaged by the fire, DNA tests are being conducted.

“The Foreign Ministry plans to work closely with the diplomatic missions of the affected countries in South Korea to support the victims and their families,” a ministry official said.

President Yoon Suk Yeol visited the scene of the fire and urged the government to take measures to prevent similar accidents in the future, his office said.

He also expressed his condolences to the victims and their families.

A fire broke out for unknown reasons in the three-story reinforced concrete building with a total usable area of ​​around 2,300 square meters.

Firefighters reportedly had difficulty completely extinguishing the fire because burning lithium batteries are difficult to fight with conventional fire-fighting methods.

A witness who managed to escape from the second floor of the plant reported to the Hwaseong Fire Station that explosive combustion occurred in a battery cell at the time of the fire.

The broadcaster said the fire spread quickly as battery cells inside kept exploding, making it difficult for rescue workers to get inside and search. There are believed to be at least 35,000 batteries at the plant.

Video surveillance footage presented by the fire department showed a light cloud of smoke rising from a battery cell, which spread rapidly within just 15 seconds and filled the interior of the factory.

“The death toll appears to have increased because the foreign workers, mostly sent by an external employment agency (for temporary work), were unaware of the factory’s internal structure,” said Cho Sun-ho, head of the fire department in Gyeonggi Province.

The Gyeonggi Nambu Provincial Police in charge of Hwaseong will conduct an investigation of the fire scene on Tuesday morning together with the fire authorities, the National Forensic Service, the Ministry of Labor and other relevant organizations to determine the exact cause of the fire.

Meanwhile, the Public Prosecutor’s Office has set up a special team to investigate the circumstances that led to the fire and identify those responsible. The Ministry of Labor, in turn, has set up a separate task force to investigate the cause of the fire and identify possible violations of the law on punishment for serious accidents.