Battery Plant Fire in South Korea Kills At Least 22 People
SEOUL (Sputnik) - At Least 22 people died in a fire at a South Korean battery factory, and foreigners may be among the victims, South Korean media reported on Monday.
The fire department has said that 23 employees of the plant stopped answering their phones after a fire was reported. Among them were 20 foreigners and two South Korean citizens. At the same time, the final signals from their phones were recorded near the plant. The authorities said that these people were on the second floor and could not evacuate.
In total, 67 people were working in the building where the fire occurred. It was built in 2018 and is one of this company's eleven buildings.
Aricell is a South Korean battery maker whose products are mainly used in smart power grids and smart meters. Primary batteries are considered less dangerous in terms of fire than rechargeable batteries, but lithium is sensitive to high temperatures, which can lead to explosions and fires that are difficult to extinguish quickly, the newspaper added.
On Monday morning, a fire broke out in a factory building operated by the battery maker in the South Korean city of Hwaseong where more than 35,000 finished lithium batteries were stored. The fire was extinguished only after 4.5 hours, after which rescuers found around 22 bodies at the scene. according to the Yonhap news agency. The search for victims is underway, the report said.
