 It is the 18th of February 2003 and the city of Daegu, South Korea, is in mourning. The late morning rush hour has become the scene of a terrible disaster. The usually bustling Daegu metro is quiet, trains have stopped and the normally busy jongangno station is closed to the public. A fire has ripped through a metro train and has enveloped another that pulled up alongside it. Emergency services scramble to try and enter the station, but the smoke and toxic fumes are too much. Most onlookers know something terrible has unfolded, but to what extent, at this point, no one knows. As the coming days unfold and a wider picture of the disaster is uncovered, it becomes apparent that it is one of the country's worst peacetime tragedies. But it was no accident, unlike other well-known subway fires. There was a deliberate act, compounded by inadequate fire suppression systems and incompetence that brought sorrow to Daegu. Today I'm looking at the tragic Daegu subway fire. Welcome to Plainly Difficult, the Daegu subway. Today's video will start with a brief history of the city's metro system. It's important, as it was a contributing factor for the disaster, but also because I do like to nerd out on these things. So the city of Daegu is the third largest in South Korea in terms of population, with roughly 2.5 million residents. Because of this, it's probably unsurprising that it was considered for a metro system. Daegu by the 1980s had a heavily overcrowded downtown area. The city had seen a lot of investment under the Parkchung He regime and as such it was swelling and clogged up with traffic. Because of this, in 1985 a consultation was set out to figure out how to improve the city's transportation infrastructure and make the area more efficient to move around in. In 1989 a feasibility study was launched to see if building a metro was even possible. All the consultations were completed by 1991 and the first digging began for line one in December the same year. Six years later the first section opened to the public. The final part of the line from Jinxiong to Daeguk opened on the 10th of May 2002. One of the line's major stations is Jonggungno station, but we will stick a pin in this station for a little bit later in the video. The network would continue to grow with line two opening in 2005 and even a monorail being added to the city in 2015. But those final two we will probably won't need to worry about for this video. Back to Jonggungno station. So it was built as part of the original stretch of line one. It was a two-platform two-track affair with the two tracks running next to each other. The station is in the heart of the city which boasted plenty of places to work and to scratch that retail itch. It even had a shopping centre built into the station with direct entrances to the transport hub. This made the station the second busiest on the network behind Banwal-Dung station. Noteworthy for being the only interchange between lines one and two, but as a side note again for this purpose of the video it's irrelevant as line two wasn't opened by the time of today's disaster. But although very busy, the station had some of the network's narrowest platforms. The trains that worked the line are the Hangin 1000 series Taegu Metro trains. They run off 1500 volts DC over headlines and were formed of six carriages. Each carriage has four passenger doors per side and they were made of aluminium body shells with plastic interiors and vinyl covered seats and plastic handles. In the early 2000s the Metro ran serving the city, people pile on and pile off and all is well until a day in February 2003. It was the morning rush of the 18th of February 2003 and the Metro trains in Taegu are crowded with passengers. The early morning rush subsided and picked up again with workers for the city's retail areas. Many shops in the city open around 10.30am as such the morning trains get a second wind of passengers between 9 and 10am. Train number 1079 was no different. It was travelling along the line between Jinshong and Anshim station. The journey takes its way through the heart of the city. One of the passengers aboard is Kim Daehan, a semi-paralyzed ex-taxi driver. In 2001 he suffered a stroke and in its wake his mental health had significantly deteriorated. This would explain why he is travelling on board train 1079 with two cartons of flammable liquid and a lighter. After the train departed, Bangguodang station Kim began to frantically try to spark his lighter. This was around 9.53am in the morning. Some passengers saw this and tried to stop him. In the struggle one of the cartons fell onto the floor, spinning its contents. As the train pulled into Jeongangono station a spark hit the fluid and caught a light. Kim's legs and back caught on fire. Train 1079 fully birthed into the platform and the train doors opened. Many fled, including the perpetrated Kim. By now the fire was close to enveloping all six carriages. As the train's plastic-heavy interior burned with thick black smoke. It choked the passengers saloons. The fire now visible to the train operator Choi Yongkwan wasn't immediately reported. Some passengers who had managed to escape pulled fire alarms but this was ignored by the Machine and Equipment Centre. At 9.55am train 1080 was headed in the opposite direction. It left Taegu station towards Jeongangono station. The Metro's controller contacted train operator of 1080 Choi Sangyul. Requesting he approached Jeongangono station at Caution due to a fire that they could see on their CCTV monitors. Choi birthed his train alongside the full inferno that was train 1079. Quickly the flames spread across to the other train. He opened the doors and then quickly closed them to try and stop the smoke from entering. What he had actually done was trap his passengers inside with the fire. Soon enough train 1080 was also now a blazing inferno. But now two uncontrollably on fire trains tripped the fire detection system in the station which closed some of the fire doors hindering escape from the station for many. Another side effect was that the overhead power lines were also switched off. Train 1080 would only have its batteries to power the doors. Choi made three announcements advising passengers to remain seated whilst he contacted railway officials. When he finally got through he was advised to flee the train. He tried to open the doors but also took his train key and escaped. However the train now low on power hadn't actually opened up all of the carriages. Roughly 79 people were trapped inside and would sadly die. The fire spread around the station filling it with black smoke. The station wasn't equipped with emergency lighting or sprinklers. Because of this many became lost in the vast underground area and subsequently died of asphyxiation. The built in ventilation system couldn't extract the smoke quick enough, further hindering any escape. Emergency workers couldn't enter the station due to the toxic fumes and it would take until half one in the afternoon to fully extinguish the fire. Early recovery began at 3.30pm and around 1300 rescue workers had attended the scene in total. Officially 192 had died in the fire, however this number is not precise, rather grimly. This was due to the intensity of the fire, meaning that some remains were not at all remaining. DNA played a vital role in victim identification along with mobile phone records and in one case possessions were found but no body. 151 were also injured, making the disaster one of the worst for peacetime South Korea. The aftermath. Needless to say the disaster shocked a nation. In the subsequent investigations the materials used in the railway carriages came under scrutiny. It would seem the lessons from the Baku Metro fire and the King's Cross station disaster were unfortunately not learnt. The trains were not equipped with fire extinguishers and a lack of proper ventilation and emergency lighting in the station proved to be a big killer, with many suffocating outside of the trains. But even with all of this the disaster could have been lessened if the train operators of both trains had acted more decisively. The driver of 1079 didn't report the fire straight away and the driver of 1080 left the doors closed for way too long, didn't make sure that everything was open and abandoned his train without helping his passengers. As such both men were found guilty of criminal negligence and sentenced to 4 and 5 years in prison respectively. But what of the person who caused the disaster, Kim Dae-han? Well he was found guilty of arson and homicide. The death penalty was sought from the victims, families and the prosecution but he was instead handed life imprisonment. This wouldn't last as Kim would die in August 2004 from long term illness. Large parts of line 1 were closed down for extensive refurbishment works improving fire resistance and suppression systems. The fleet was revamped and renovated with less flammable materials but this would not just impact Taegu but other metros across South Korea where fire proofing work would be conducted. Sinting at a pretty big oversight in the rush to modernise the country. The disaster is a lesson for all metros across the world where fire can really be devastating. It's sad though that so many had to lose their lives to relearn the age old lessons of fires and tunnels are horrific. This is a plain difficult production. All videos on the channel are creative commons attribution and share alike licensed. 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