<Anchor>
On the night of the 12th, when a major fire broke out at the Hankook Tire plant in
Daejeon, suspicions arose that the company had evacuated employees late. Employees claim that Plant 2, close to Plant 1, where the fire broke out, kept people out for a while, and there was no evacuation announcement.

TJB reporter Kim Chul-jin contributed to this report.

<Reporter>

On the night of the 12th, Hankook Tire's Daejeon plant caught fire.

Its own fire brigade tried to extinguish it but failed, and the flames quickly spread to the entire 800-meter-long second plant.

After receiving the report, the fire department also began to extinguish it, but the flames grew more intense and the second phase of the response was issued, mobilizing all adjacent fire stations.

Until that time, there were still families near the factory waiting anxiously for the employees who had not yet come out.

[Parents of Hankook Tire employees: I think my son Jung-won told me to keep working. Now that the fire is out, I asked him how to keep working, and now he told me to evacuate now because it is too bad...]

As a result of the interview, it was found that the employees of Plant 2, which is only 2~2m away from the second factory where the fire broke out, could not leave the factory after 30 pm.

Considering that the fire spread quickly on a conveyor belt, and that tires burned and toxic fumes were emitted, it is pointed out that there must have been a lot of casualties.

Employees say there was a fire next to them, but there was no announcement of the evacuation, and they were only able to get out of the factory after checking the number of people in each team.

[Hankook Tire employee: (Broadcast?) There is no such thing, once there was a big fire, I think the people in charge on each line now did this separately and privately.]

In response, Hankook Tire said that Plant 40 may have sounded a fire alarm but Plant 1 did not, and instead evacuated by teams.

He also explained that it is difficult to say exactly when the evacuation will be completed, but that Plant 11 and Plant 2 were evacuated sequentially to prevent further accidents.

(Video Interview: Choi Woon-gi TJB)

▶ 'Detection' of the cause of the fire at the factory next door... Realization of secondary damage to dust and wastewater