One person was killed in a fire at a factory in Eumseong County, North Chungcheong, that produces wet wipes and diapers. The blaze was brought under control after an all-night operation, but the whereabouts of a missing foreign worker have not yet been confirmed.
Fire authorities said at 12:08 p.m. on the 31st that the fire that broke out the day before at the Eumseong County factory had been fully extinguished. They lowered the response level from stage 2 to stage 1 and are focusing on searching for people. The fire was extinguished about 21 hours and 10 minutes after it started.
Of the 83 people in the factory at the time of the fire, 81 evacuated. The whereabouts of a Nepalese employee in his 20s and a Kazakhstan employee in his 50s were unclear, and at about 12:39 a.m. that day, one person was found dead near a stairway on the second floor of the factory building. Fire authorities moved the burned body to the Eumseong Geumwang Funeral Home. They asked the National Forensic Service to confirm the identity.
A preliminary count showed that three of the five buildings on a site of about 24,000 square meters were burned. Embers, carried by the wind, spread to a wooded hill about 500 meters away and burned about 1,000 square meters. Three nearby buildings, including factories, also reportedly suffered some damage.