Korea arson kills 120

DAEGU, South Korea -- Fire raced through two subway trains packed with people in South Korea on Tuesday after a man ignited a carton filled with flammable material, killing about 120 people and injuring 135, officials said.

A suspect, who police said had a history of mental illness, was under interrogation in Daegu, South Korea's third-largest city, but police still did not know what motivated the attack. Rescue workers had given up the search for survivors by the afternoon. It was unknown what substance the attacker used to start the blaze.

The fire started in one six-car train at a station, igniting seats and spreading to another train also stopped at the station, officials said.

Lim Dae-yoon, the chief of Daegu city's east district municipal government, said the number of victims was about 120. "We believe the death toll will not rise drastically from that," Lim said.

Many bodies were burned beyond recognition. Officials said they would have to wait for DNA tests to determine an exact number, which could take weeks.

Other people died of asphyxiation on the train platform. One man said his missing daughter called by mobile phone to say there was a fire and the subway door wasn't opening.

Firefighters gave horrifying accounts of the scene underground: bodies of victims asphyxiated as they tried to escape up the stairs; on the platform were the ashen bones of those trapped in the flames.

Chung Sook-jae, 54, rushed to the scene after her daughter, 26- year-old Min Shim-eun, called her husband to say she was suffocating. Then the line went dead.

"She never caused any problems. She was a good kid. Why does this have to happen to her?" Chung said, crying on the pavement near the scene. "If she's not out by now, she's probably dead. What am I going to do if her body is all burned out of recognition?"

Police were interrogating Kim Dae-han, 56, who witnesses said carried a milk carton into the subway car, according to Kim Byong- hak, a police lieutenant in Daegu.

"When the man tried to use a cigarette lighter to light the box, some passengers tied to stop him. Apparently a scuffle erupted and the box exploded into flames," the officer said.

Authorities said that the fire was put out by 1 p.m., about three hours after it started, but toxic gas in the tunnel delayed rescue efforts, the Yonhap news agency said. The acrid odor of burned plastic still wafted over the fire scene hours after the flames had been put out.

The television station YTN aired footage of the chaotic scene inside a nearby hospital, reportedly showing the suspect being attended to by nurses. The man sat frowning on a bed wearing a hospital smock, his face and hands smudged from soot from the fire.

Yu Heung-soo, a police sergeant in Daegu, said Kim had been burned in both legs and the right wrist. But a doctor told YTN that the man's only injury was toxic gas inhalation.

YTN, without citing sources, also reported that the suspect worked as a truck driver and had once threatened to burn down the hospital where he had received unsatisfactory treatment.

In the minutes after the fire began, thick black smoke billowed out of ventilator shafts of the subway. Downtown traffic came to a standstill as ambulances rushed to the scene. Orange suit-clad firefighters wearing oxygen tanks rushed into the subway.

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