Hospital inferno kills 37
Safety questions as another tragedy striking nation’s vulnerable.
South Korean president Moon Jae-in yesterday visited the burned out hospital that claimed 37 lives, decrying “one tragedy after another” to strike his country.
Flames and toxic smoke swept through the Sejong Hospital in the southern city of Miryang on Friday, injuring more than 150 people, just weeks after a fire killed 29 people at a fitness centre.
All the hospital victims died from smoke inhalation.
Moon spoke to grieving members and firefighters.
He ordered a full inquiry and said “utmost Government efforts” were needed to support the injured and families of the victims.
The Government of Asia’s fourthlargest economy, which has one of the world’s fastest ageing populations, has faced criticism in recent years over poor safety standards, including the Sewol ferry disaster of 2014 in which more than 300 people, mostly schoolchildren, drowned.
Hospital director Song Byeongcheol said the six-storey hospital did not have a sprinkler system and was not large enough to legally require one.
The opposition Liberal Party was quick to condemn Moon for the family disaster and demanded plan” to protect citizens.
Ham Eun-gu, a professor at Open Cyber University of Korea, said safety checks at many private hospitals, including Sejong Hospital, were often carried out as a formality and not strictly enforced. a “master
Many survivors of Friday’s blaze “walked though fire and smoke” to escape, a city official told Reuters.
Officials are rushing to identify the 37 victims and pinpoint the cause of the fire, which broke out at the rear of the emergency room on the first floor, said fire official Choi Man-woo.
At least 177 patients, most of them elderly, were in the hospital and a nursing home next door when the fire broke out, said hospital director Song.
He said three of the nine hospital staff on duty at the time died — at least one doctor, a nurse and a nurse’s aide.