37°33′39″N 126°58′58″E / 37.560882°N 126.982714°E / 37.560882; 126.982714

Daeyeonggak Hotel fire
Date25 December 1971 (1971-12-25)
Time9:50 am
LocationChungmuro, Jung District, Seoul, South Korea
CauseGas explosion[1]
Deaths164
Non-fatal injuries63

The Daeyeonggak Hotel fire was a skyscraper fire in Seoul, South Korea on 25 December 1971; 164 people died and 63 were injured .[2] It remains the deadliest hotel fire in history.

Background

The 22-storey Daeyeonggak Hotel (also called Hotel Taeyongak) was a luxury hotel completed in 1969.[3] It had 222 rooms.[4] A total of 187 guests and about 130 workers were presumed to have been in the hotel prior to the fire. Of the registered guests, 47 were listed as foreigners.[5]

The design of the building was said to have played a part in the high death toll. The two internal stairwells were designed for use in case of lift failures and not as fire exits, and lacked fireproof doors. Consequently the stairwells filled with smoke during the fire, acting as chimneys, and spread the fire to upper floors of the building.[3][6] The building had no external emergency staircase. The walls between the hotel rooms were not sufficiently fire resistant, hastening the spread of the blaze.[3] The tower lacked many other safety features, including battery-operated exit lights.

Fire

The fire was reportedly due to an explosion of propane gas that had been used as cooking fuel in a coffee shop, located on the second floor.[5] The fire burned for ten hours.[6] Many were unable to find the exit in the darkness. The fire department's ladders only reached the eighth floor, trapping those from the ninth to the 22nd storeys.[6] Only eight people were reported as being rescued from windows.[5]

Twelve helicopters, including those from the United States military bases, were mobilised to try to rescue guests from the roof using aerial slings.[6][5]

Victims

At least thirty-eight people died leaping from windows to escape the inferno, some clinging to mattresses in an attempt to survive the fall.[6] At least one man fell to his death from a helicopter.[6] Sixty-nine people were reported as injured with many of them listed in serious condition.[5]

The 162nd death was that of Yu Sien-yung, the minister of the Taiwanese embassy in Seoul, who lived alone in the hotel. He was trapped in the burning building for more than 10 hours and died in hospital, aged 64, on 4 January 1972.[7]

The authorities arrested eight people in connection with the disaster.[8] These included Kim Yong-san and four other hotel officials, who were charged with carelessness and improper construction, as well as two former city officials and a fire officer on charges of negligence.[4]

Aftermath

Two senior fire services officers of the Hong Kong Government flew to Seoul on 11 January 1972 to confer with the South Koreans on fire prevention.[8] President Park Chung-hee mentioned the fire in a New Years press conference on 11 January 1972 where he claimed that careless fire management of the building and of the building material were to blame.[9]

The building was remodeled after the fire. There was another fire there on 27 February 2010.

See also

References

  1. ↑ 陈军 (1998). 《人民警察素貭敎育全书》. 中国检察出版社. p. 337.
  2. ↑ 章孝思 (Feb 1985). 《高层建筑防火》. 中国建筑工业出版社. ISBN 711200750X.
  3. 1 2 3 "Insufficient fire exits pushed up hotel deaths". South China Morning Post. 30 December 1971. p. 18.
  4. 1 2 "Seoul hotel fire: 8 arrested". South China Morning Post. 29 December 1971. p. 16.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 "141 DIE IN SEOUL AS HOTEL BURNS". The New York Times. December 26, 1971. Archived from the original on 2022-01-12. Retrieved January 12, 2022.
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "Fire turned hotel into death-trap chimney expert". South China Morning Post. United Press International. 28 December 1971.
  7. ↑ "Hotel fire toll up". South China Morning Post. 5 January 1972. p. 18.
  8. 1 2 "Fire experts off to Seoul". South China Morning Post. 11 January 1972. p. 18.
  9. ↑ Kim, Young-kyun (2017). Disaster Risk Management in the Republic of Korea. Singapore: Springer Singapore. pp. 154–155. ISBN 9789811047893.
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