[Anchor]
A fire broke out at a gosiwon-style, room-rental villa in Yeongdeungpo-gu, Seoul, earlier today (October 8), leaving one man in his 50s dead. Police are investigating the cause of the fire based on statements from nearby residents who reported hearing sudden explosions.
Reporter Cho Min-ki has the details.
[Reporter]
Whitish smoke continuously billows from the first floor of the building.
Firefighters continuously spray water over the fence as they attempt to enter the building.
Around 12:30 PM today, a fire broke out at a four-story villa building in Yeongdeungpo-gu, Seoul.
[Kim Tae-jun / Yeongdeungpo-gu, Seoul: I kept knocking on the door, and then there was a pop sound, and the fire came out sideways through the gaps like this. I went in and just sprayed a fire extinguisher.]
The fire was completely extinguished in about an hour and a half, but a man in his 50s who lived alone on the first floor was found dead.
As smoke spread upward through the building at the time of the fire, another man in his 40s who evacuated to the rooftop complained of nausea and was taken to the hospital.
Fortunately, the fire that started on the first floor did not spread further to other areas, and nine residents inside the building evacuated on their own.
The building where the fire occurred consists of small-sized rooms like a gosiwon, making it effectively resemble a jjokbangchon (slum-like impoverished neighborhood of tiny rooms).
Nearby residents stated that because the building lacks kitchens, butane gas canisters are used when cooking food, and they heard loud explosions at the time the fire broke out.
[Ji Gal-leb / Yeongdeungpo-gu, Seoul: It seems like a butane gas canister exploded while cooking something. It went 'pop, pop, pop, pop' and exploded, and then smoke started coming out...]
Police and fire authorities, who launched a joint on-site inspection immediately after extinguishing the fire, are investigating the exact cause of the fire and the scale of the damage based on statements from nearby residents and site investigations.
(Video Editing: Park Ji-in, VJ: Noh Jae-min)
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