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Yesterday (29th), a joint identification was held at the scene of a fire on the 2nd Gyeongin Expressway, where about 40 casualties occurred during the day.
It is estimated that the vehicles stopped and got tangled after seeing the fire, and the damage increased because there was no emergency evacuation.
This is Reporter Park Jae-yeon.
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Even firefighters can't easily approach the flames with black smoke in the tunnel.
Yesterday at around 1:50 p.m., a fire broke out in a soundproof tunnel near Bukuiwang IC on the 2nd Gyeongin Expressway in Gwacheon, Gyeonggi Province, killing 5 people and causing 46 casualties.
The police held a joint identification with the fire authorities and the National Institute of Scientific Investigation from this morning to identify the cause of the accident.
The police determined that the fire started in the lower right corner of the cargo hold of the waste tong truck, but the cause of the fire has not yet been identified.
The police determined that the size of the damage increased as the fire moved to the soundproof wall and spread rapidly through the wind.
[Yeo Woon-cheol/Chief of Scientific Investigation, Gyeonggi Southern Office: As the fire spread rapidly, it seems that the damage spread as vehicles stopped and got tangled.] The
dead were mainly found more than 200m from the entrance of the tunnel, but inside the soundproof tunnel. It was confirmed that there was no emergency evacuation route, so it was impossible to find a place to evacuate.
At the time of the fire, it was found that the circuit breaker that blocked vehicle entry into the tunnel was also not working properly because the electricity was cut off.
The police are looking into whether the truck driver was negligent, including whether he took appropriate action in the event of a fire.