Police Unable to Charge 5 in S. Korea Fire

As the toll from South Korea’s deadliest fire in a quarter of a century rose to 55 dead and 79 injured, police were dealt a setback today by a court ruling that they lacked sufficient evidence to charge five suspects with involuntary manslaughter and gross negligence in connection with the blaze at an illegal beer hall, police said.

Police had detained the five: an electrician, a builder, two laborers and a 14-year-old boy who had been working during the renovation of a karaoke bar in the building that burned in this port city.

More than 120 people, mostly high school students, were trapped in an inferno that engulfed the upper stories Saturday night after paint thinner in the basement karaoke bar caught fire.

Today’s court ruling means that police may hold the suspects for 48 hours while seeking more evidence. Authorities are still searching for the manager of the illegal beer hall, who had been ordered to shut down the establishment eight days before the fire and who allegedly fled during the blaze.

Allegations that some of the students had been locked into the second-floor beer hall continued to surface, but there was no confirmation today.

South Korea’s state-run KBS television reported that a second survivor, a teenage boy hospitalized with breathing difficulties after apparently inhaling toxic smoke, had charged that the students had been locked in. On Sunday, a 16-year-old girl had told friends and relatives that the manager had told staff to keep the students locked inside until they paid for their drinks.

Inchon television showed footage of the broken inside handle of one of the double doors to the beer hall. The frame to the outer steel door had also been detached in what appeared to have been an effort by the victims to break out.

Doctors said they feared that the death toll could rise, as at least 19 of the injured remained in critical condition in area hospitals after inhaling poisonous fumes.

“Some of our critical patients cannot breathe on their own,” said a doctor in charge of an intensive care unit at an Inchon hospital. “You could say the fumes burned their lungs.”

Police said they had yet to identify more than 25 of the dead, as most of the victims were underage and were not carrying identification.

“Most of them were high school kids who had flocked to the bar to drink beer and sing after an autumn festival at their schools,” said a police official at the Inchon headquarters.

Karaoke bars, known as “singing rooms,” are popular in South Korea. They usually are large areas divided into small cubicles equipped with sing-along karaoke machines. Fire officials have often said the cramped rooms are potential fire hazards.

President Kim Dae Jung ordered his government Sunday to step up safety inspections. He issued a similar order four months ago when 19 kindergartners and four adults were killed in a fire that gutted a seaside summer camp in western South Korea.

Saturday’s fire began as revelers partied to earsplitting music and two teenage workers cleaned the floor of the newly painted karaoke club in the basement. Their supervisor was gone, and they hurriedly mopped the paint-splattered floor with paint thinner.

According to police, one of them inadvertently broke an incandescent light with his mop handle, causing a spark and igniting the inferno. The 14-year-old part-time worker could face charges of involuntary manslaughter. The other, reportedly a 17-year-old, was killed in the fire.