Newsnomics AJAY ANGELINA reporter |
A huge fire halts the Hankook tire plant in the central city of Daejeon, South Korea on Sunday at 10:9 p.m.
burned about 210,000 tires, but no serious injuries occurred reported by the fire officials on Monday March
13, 2023.
The authorities said the fire is presumed to have started from a tire-shaping machine in the northern part of
the second plant that was stored with flammable materials.
According to fire officials, 10 plant workers and one firefighter have sought medical treatment due to smoke
inhalation, much of the 87,000 square-meter logistics building, which housed about 400,000 tires, was burned down.
Hankook Tire Daejeon plant has stopped the production lines after a fire burned some of the factory buildings and left severe damage, the South Korean tire manufacturer reported on Monday.
The officials said, “We still have a long way to go to figure out the cause of the fire, as the authorities have not yet completely extinguished it.”
The huge fire plumes and smoke has affected the area all around.
Two middle schools located near the plant were closed for the day, another high school nearby was switched to remote classes, the residents of nearby apartment were evacuated and others were instructed to close their home windows.
The fire has also affected transportation system like traffic on an express way, the train services running near
the factory and especially the high-speed KTX trains detoured around Daejeon were resumed early Monday.
The interior ministry ordered officials to prevent any secondary damage to buildings and residents living
nearby.
The incident marks the second fire at Hankook Tire’s Daejeon plant in nine years. In October 2014, the same
factory building caught fire, that resulted the damage of 6.6 billion won worth and over 180,000 destroyed
tires.
The company has eight global plants -- two in South Korea, one in Hungary, one in the United States, three in China and one in Indonesia -- whose combined capacity reaches about 100 million tires per year.
