<Anchor>
On the afternoon of the 30th, at a pharmaceutical company's factory in Hwaseong, Gyeonggi-do, a fire broke out with a large explosion, killing one employee and injuring 15 others.
First, reporter Park Ha-jeong reports.
<Reporter>
Black smoke billows out of the factory building, and flames flutter in it.
At around 2:20 pm today, a fire started with an explosion at a pharmaceutical company's factory in Hwaseong, Gyeonggi-do.
[Witness: The window was thumping and shaking so much that my ears were numb, so where did the bomb exploded?
After a while it started to smoke...
.]
The iron panels that used to be the exterior walls of the factory were crumpled like paper and scattered all over the place.
You can guess how great the impact was at the time of the explosion.
A 29-year-old factory worker who lost contact immediately after the fire was found outside the building in cardiac arrest, and was taken to the hospital, but eventually died.
At that time, about 40 people were working in the factory, 15 people were receiving treatment for major and minor injuries, and the rest were evacuated.
It took four hours to completely extinguish the fire due to the constant rising flames.
The explosion is believed to have started on the third floor of the factory.
It was the place where the material synthesis process for manufacturing drugs took place, but it was found that there were many chemicals such as acetone and toluene on the third floor of the factory.
The fire department believes that acetone oil vapor was the cause of the explosion and fire.
[Uhm Tae-bok / Hwaseong Fire Department on-site response team leader: In the process of controlling exposure from the piping side, (acetone) oil vapor stayed, and we are investigating
that it was ignited and exploded.]
The cause of the fire will be investigated.
(Video coverage: Jeon Gyeong-bae, video editing: Tae-ho Yoon, CG: Seong-beom Jang, screen provided: viewer Ji-hyun Han, anonymous)
▶ "Estimated oil vapor leak"...
Hwaseong Pharmaceutical Factory Explosion Fire Site