120 killed on South Korea underground as 'arsonist' attacks train

At least 120 people were killed yesterday when a fire ripped through two packed underground trains in South Korea in what appeared to be an arson attack.

Rescue workers gave horrifying descriptions of the inferno that took hold beneath the city of Daegu with such ferocity that it cremated scores of people and melted the steel frames of carriages. Passeng-ers had no chance of escaping the fast-moving fire, which witnesses said was started by a man with a home-made firebomb in a milk carton.

As the flames and smoke engulfed the victims, several made panic-stricken calls by mobile phone. One man received a call from his wife. "Help me," she said. "There's a fire on the underground. The door is locked." Another man was called by his 26-year-old daughter, who said she was suffocating.

Moments after the fire began in one train, another drew up alongside it, condemning more passengers to death.

Cho Hae Nyoung, the city's mayor, said Kim Dae Han, the man suspected of starting the fire, had a history of mental illness. South Korean television reports said he was a truck driver who had once threatened to burn down a hospital because it had treated him badly. Mr Kim, 56, was being questioned last night after being treated for leg and wrist burns.

Rescue officials said they had counted about 120 dead casualties and said they did not expect the final toll to be much higher. Some of the victims will be identifiable only by using DNA samples; others were suffocated by smoke and noxious fumes. Hospital officials said 136 people were injured, some seriously.

For the people of Daegu, a textile city in the south-east of the country with a population of 2.5 million, the disaster was a sickening reminder of a tragedy eight years ago when 101 people were killed in a gas explosion at a construction site for the underground railway.

The deaths shook the whole country, whose 48 million people are already enduring a nerve-racking period caused by the international crisis involving North Korea.

Accounts differed of exactly what happened before the fire began at 9.55am at Jungangro station in central Daegu. One witness spoke of a man in a tracksuit setting light to a milk carton, apparently containing flammable liquid, and throwing it into a crowded railway carriage.

Another man told Arirang Television the man had kept flicking a lighter on and off. "An old man next to him told him to stop playing with it. I think that's when the man dropped the lighter and the fire started. That's when some young men tackled him," the man said.

A third witness, Park Keum Tae, said: "The man produced a pack out of his black bag and lit it with a cigarette lighter. When people around him tried to stop him, he just hurled it overhead and it exploded into flames." The television station YTN aired footage from inside a hospital, showing nurses attending to a man who it said was Mr Kim. The man sat frowning on a bed wearing a hospital smock, his face and hands smudged with soot.

The second train pulled into the station alongside the first as the fire took hold, setting alight seat fabric and floor tiles. The two trains, with six carriages each, had about 400 passengers in total, who had almost no time to escape.

Before long, acrid smoke was pouring out of ventilator vents into the streets, cloaking the city centre in a pall of evil-smelling grey smoke, which paralysed traffic and caused residents to flee.

The injured were taken to eight hospitals. Rescue workers from the South Korean army and the American military, which has 37,000 troops in the country, worked with the police, firefighters and paramedics, in a firefighting and rescue and recovery operation that involved more than 3,000 people.

There were reports that toxic gas from burning material delayed rescue efforts – an issue that seems likely to become the focus of controversy when the investigation begins. The fire was put out in three hours; temperatures were so high that firefighters were driven back when they first tackled it.

"Everything that can be burnt has been burnt, the chairs and everything," said one fireman, Chun Tae Ryong. "I brought out five people. Three were alive when I rescued them, but I don't know what happened to them. They were making noises but could not talk."

Another fireman, Park Chang Shik, spoke of haunting scenes: bodies of people who choked as they fled for safety; and the ash-white bones of those who were consumed by the flames. "There were white bones scattered on the floor mixed with people's burnt belongings – there was even a skull," he said, soot caking his face. "I brought up four bodies. They were lying on the stairs. I didn't even have time to feel terrible."

Last night dazed and desperate relatives were clinging to fading hopes as they awaited news from the scene. Kim Bok Sun, 45, said that her missing daughter, Kang Yeon Ju, 21, had telephoned her. "She only said that there was a fire and the train door wasn't opening, so I told her to just break open a window and get out," she said. She called her daughter back a few minutes later, but there was no answer.

Kim Dae Wook, 30, was searching for his mother, Seok Palchundae. "She always takes the train at this time to buy groceries. She doesn't have a mobile phone," he said."I've been to five hospitals and checked all the dead or missing lists, but couldn't find her name."

Kim Dae Jung, the President of South Korea, sent a message of condolence to those affected by the disaster.

Daegu, about 130 miles from the capital, Seoul, was one of the cities that staged games during the football World Cup last year.