KB News Desk
Some 3,000 workers and others were evacuated from a large warehouse in Incheon on Wednesday after smoke was detected in a basement mechanical room, with no injuries reported.
According to the Incheon Fire Department, the fire broke out at around 5:28 p.m. in an electrical distribution panel inside a mechanical room on the first basement level of a 10-story logistics warehouse in Wonchang-dong, Seohae District, Incheon.
The fire was extinguished internally at around 5:42 p.m., before firefighters arrived, and no injuries were reported.
Fire authorities dispatched 81 personnel and 33 pieces of equipment to the scene, helping around 950 employees and others evacuate before conducting a search of the entire building. Another approximately 2,050 people evacuated on their own.
The large warehouse houses six companies, with Coupang understood to lease most of the building for use as a logistics center.
Authorities subsequently searched all floors of the building and found no signs of additional fire.
Fire authorities are investigating the exact cause of the incident, including the possibility that the fire originated in a bus duct, an enclosed electrical distribution system used to carry large amounts of power.
Coupang Fulfillment Services, the e-commerce giant’s logistics unit stressed that the area where the smoke originated was not under its control.
“The first basement level where the smoke occurred is not a space occupied or managed by Coupang, but an area managed by the landlord,” the company said in a statement.
“Immediately after the smoke was detected, employees of Coupang and the other tenant companies all evacuated safely,” it added.
Wednesday’s incident follows a much larger fire at Coupang’s No. 32 logistics center in nearby Seoknam-dong on July 18. The blaze spread from the sixth to the seventh floor of the eight-story facility and took nearly 110 hours to fully extinguish, as large amounts of flammable materials and the building’s complex structure complicated firefighting efforts. All workers evacuated safely, although two firefighters were treated for smoke inhalation and exhaustion.
