[Anchor]

Fires, suspected to be cases of arson, broke out consecutively at two buildings in Gangnam, Seoul, today (October 20). A total of 19 people were injured, including a woman in her 30s who was transported to the hospital in cardiac arrest. Police have apprehended and are questioning a man in his 70s as the arson suspect.

First, reporter Kwon Min-kyu has the details.

[Reporter]

Pitch-black smoke rises from a building, and exterior wall structures are torn off due to intense heat.

People escaping through windows wait precariously with their backs against the exterior wall for rescue, while firefighters attempt to save them using a ladder truck.

[Witness: Hurry, hurry. What do we do, what do we do? The fire is getting bigger.]

Around 11:50 AM today, a fire broke out on the third floor of a seven-story building located in Yeoksam-dong, Gangnam-gu, Seoul.

[Witness: One man leaned half of his body out and kept asking to call an ambulance. Next to him, black smoke and a massive fire were breaking out...]

Eleven people were injured and transported to the hospital, including two with serious injuries, while about 60 people inside the building evacuated urgently.

Among the severely injured, a woman in her 30s was found in cardiac arrest in the hallway of the third floor where the fire started, and she is reportedly regaining her breath now.

[Witness: I saw one person being carried out on a stretcher and receiving CPR. I heard the sound of glass breaking and glass falling. And I could see people inside...]

However, just seven minutes after the fire report was received, another fire started at a different building only about 200 meters away.

The fire, which began on the fourth floor of a ten-story commercial building, injured eight people, three of whom received treatment after showing symptoms of severe breathing difficulty.

[Witness: People were murmuring that a fire broke out and that we needed to get out. An announcement suddenly came on, asking people to evacuate the building...]

Responding to reports that someone had set a fire, the fire authorities issued a Level 1 response and brought the flames under control at both buildings in about an hour.

Police identified a man in his 70s, surnamed A, as the suspect who allegedly set fires at the two buildings consecutively, and stated that they apprehended him near Jongno-gu, Seoul, at around 4:10 PM, four hours after the fires broke out.

(Video by Kim Se-kyung and Yang Ji-hoon | Video Editing by Lee Hong-myung | Graphics by Kim Han-gil)