When a fire broke out on the 17th of last month at the Deokpyeong Logistics Center in Icheon, Gyeonggi-do of Coupang, Korea's leading e-commerce company, officials in the disaster prevention room turned off the fire alarm six times, confirming that the initial firefighting was delayed.
The Gyeonggi Nambu Police Agency's investigation team arrested a total of three people, including a team leader from B and two employees of Company A, in charge of electricity and firefighting facilities in Coupang Logistics Center, on charges of violating the law on fire prevention, installation and maintenance of firefighting facilities, and safety management. It was announced today (19th).
In addition, in accordance with the penalty regulations that punish both the criminal and the corporation, Company A was charged with the same.
Mr. B and others were accused of delaying the operation of the sprinkler by about 10 minutes by initializing the operation of the disaster prevention system six times without checking the site when the fire alarm went off on the second basement floor of the Coupang logistics center around 5:20 am on the 17th. There is.
In this building disaster prevention system, when the first alarm goes off, the installed sensor detects smoke and heat, and when the detection result exceeds the set standard, the sprinkler is activated.
At that time, the first alarm sounded at 5:27 am, and it is known that Mr. B and others misunderstood this as a malfunction of the device and reset the disaster prevention system six times.
After that, the system started working again and the sprinklers started at 5:40 am, about 10 minutes after the first alarm went off.
A police official explained, "These are employees of a subcontractor who is in charge of the control system, and the delay in the operation of the sprinkler seems to have led to the spread of the fire."
In addition, the police investigated whether there were instructions from upper management, such as Coupang headquarters, in the process of initializing the control system, but there was no circumstance related to it.
As for the cause of the fire, it was tentatively concluded that the fire started as a spark from an electrical factor splattered from the wire above the shelf of the shelf in the warehouse, as previously suggested.
The fire started on the second basement floor around 5:20 am on the 17th of last month.
The fire seemed to be extinguished after 2 hours and 40 minutes, but at 11:50 a.m., the fire began to soar inside and soon spread throughout the building and was extinguished on the 22nd of the same month, six days after the occurrence.
At the time of the fire, all Coupang employees evacuated, but Kim Dong-sik (52, fire chief) of the 119 rescue team at the Gyeonggi Gwangju Fire Station entered the basement of the building to search for people, but when the fire spread, he could not come out and eventually died.
(Photo = Yonhap News)