Police clean up after an explosion at a gas station car wash in Suwon, Gyeonggi, on Saturday, which killed three people and injured four others. [YONHAP] |
A car wash at a gas station in Suwon, Gyeonggi, exploded Saturday morning, killing three people, injuring four others and destroying more than 10 vehicles and a dozen houses in the area, according to the police.
Police said yesterday that two unauthorized 50,000-liter oil tanks were in the basement of the car wash, one filled with cheaper fuels used to adulterate gasoline. Six more underground oil tanks were authorized and filled with regular gasoline. They all exploded.
Two employees of the gas station were killed: a Korean surnamed Kwon, 47, and a Chinese national, Liu Peng, 25. A customer surnamed Kim, 46, who was inside his car as it was being washed, was also killed.
“There’s a high possibility that steam penetrated the basement through a crack in an oil tank or a pipe, causing an explosion,” said an official at the Korea Institute of Petroleum Management. “Petroleum-like fuels have stronger explosive power than regular gasoline.”
The police said they are analyzing CCTV footage around the time of the explosion and prohibited the owner of the gas station, who is surnamed Kwon, 44, from leaving the country.
The gas station was caught in 2009 and in May for selling adulterated gasoline, which is illegal.
After the explosion, car owners around Seoul avoided car washes.
A car wash of a gas station had no customers all morning yesterday.
“I haven’t seen a single customer since Saturday afternoon,” said Yim, 58, who runs a car wash at a Hyundai Oil Bank gas station in Junggok-dong, eastern Seoul. “I think it is probably because of the explosion in Suwon.”
An S-Oil gas station in Dangsan-dong, western Seoul, which usually has lines of customers waiting to wash their cars on weekends, was deserted. “Usually, 50 to 80 vehicles use the car wash every day,” said its manager. “But ever since yesterday, there have been no customers, so we turned the power off.”
“I’m quite concerned that all automatic car wash machines will be seen as dangerous to the public even though the accident was caused by poor management of one gas station,” said Lee, 29, a manager of GS-Caltex in Myeongmok-dong, eastern Seoul.
Customers admitted to having the jitters. Kim Geun-hoe, 47, a customer of a GS-Caltex gas station, waved dismissively when offered a free car wash for buying 80,000 won ($69) worth of gas. “I am worried about using a car wash now that I know there are explosive substances underground,” Kim said. “I’m going to wash my car at home for a while.”
“I’ve seen many gas stations that pile up dangerous substances such as thinners around their car washes,” said Kim Seong-young, 59, a taxi driver. “I doubt the safety of gas stations, as most of them are poorly managed.”