South Korean police yesterday arrested four men in connection with a fire in an illegal beer hall which left 54 young people dead and 71 injured.
The four, an electrician, two interior designers and a builder, are suspected of flouting fire safety regulations during the renovation of a karaoke lounge below the bar where most of the mainly teenage victims died.
Saturday night's disaster in the unlicensed drinking club in the city of Inchon was the worst of its kind in 25 years and marked yet another incident in South Korea's appalling building safety record.
Early reports suggest an electrical short circuit may have been to blame. The fire was the worst in South Korea since 88 people died in a Seoul shopping mall fire in November 1974.
In July, a fire at a holiday camp southwest of Seoul killed 23 people including 19 children.
"So far we know that 54 people, most of them aged around 16 or 17, died in the fire, which started in an underground karaoke lounge, sending toxic smoke and flames through the whole building," a firefighter said.
Police said they were searching for the owner of the second floor bar, where under-age secondary school pupils were drinking when the fire erupted in the four-storey building in this northwestern port city.
Inchon city officials said the beer hall had no licence to operate and that its closure had been ordered a week earlier.
It had no fire escape and its windows were encased by heavy screens.