South Korea police blame quality failures for fatal fire at battery maker

SEOUL – The South Korean police said on Aug 23 that the fatal

fire in June at a lithium battery factory,

which killed 23 people, occurred as the company raced to produce batteries to meet a deadline without taking action to address signs of dangerous quality failures.

Nine other workers were injured in the fire at battery maker Aricell, which is majority owned by S-Connect.

Calls to Aricell seeking comment following the police announcement were not immediately answered, but the company has previously said it complied with all required safety precautions and training.

The police have been investigating the blaze, which was one of South Korea’s deadliest industrial accidents in recent years, over suspected safety violations after ordering a halt of operations.

The Labour Ministry and police had sought arrest warrants for several executives, including the chief executive, for alleged safety violations and negligence, officials said at a news conference.

The company had failed a quality inspection in April for batteries that were intended to be supplied to the country’s military and subsequently ramped up production to make up the backlog to meet a deadline, police official Kim Jong-min said.

It hired temporary and unskilled workers, contributing to a jump in product defect rates, including overheating of finished batteries, but did not take action to contain safety risks, Mr Kim said.

“The accident occurred as the company pushed ahead without taking measures despite problems in various steps in the production process,” he said.

The high number of casualties was due to a lack of emergency escape training, Mr Kim added.

The workers who were killed had missed a 37-second window to escape, he said.

Security camera footage showed the fire sparking from a stack of batteries and quickly engulfing the factory where 35,000 lithium batteries were stored.

The toxic smoke probably rendered workers unconscious within seconds, fire officials have previously said.

Of those who died, 17 were Chinese, one was Laotian and the rest were South Korean.

Soon after the fire, Aricell CEO Park Soon-kwan apologised to everyone affected by the accident.

Mr Park said at that time that the company had complied with all required safety precautions and training, but pledged to take part in the probe and ensure there would be no repeat of such an accident.

At the Aug 23 news conference, the authorities said they had requested an arrest warrant for Mr Park on allegations that included violating industrial safety laws.

Set up in 2020, Aricell has 48 full-time employees and makes lithium primary batteries for sensors and radio communication devices.

The company had supplied batteries to the military for use in some communication and cryptography devices, a spokesperson for South Korea’s defence procurement agency has said. REUTERS