ICUS/INCEDE NEWSLETTER

page 1

International Center for Urban Safety Engineering
Institute of Industrial Science
The University of Tokyo

VOLUME 3 NUMBER 2
JULY -SEPTEMBER 2003

International Center for
Urban Safety Engineering

ISSUES RAISED BY THE RCENT SUBWAY FIRE
IN SOUTH KOREA
By
Makoto TSUJIMOTO*
A train was set on fire with twoliters of gasoline at the Jungangno
Subway Station in Daegu, South
Korea at about 9:53 a.m. on
February 18, 2003. This incident
killed 192 people, which without
doubt accounts for the largest
number of deaths resulting from afire in a subway train. It wasreminiscent of another recent
accident involving a mountain train
in Salzburg, Austria (November 11,2000). In both cases, thepassengers died because theirescape routes were cut off by
flames and smoke, with the trains
burning over an extended period oftime. However, the case in Korea
was an incendiary fire caused by
setting fire to gasoline, andultimately the issue presented here
is how to make disaster prevention
plans for these kinds of intentionallycaused and rapidly-spreading fires.
The table in the following pageshows the items of disasterprevention equipment on each floorof the station and the figure shows
the general conditions surrounding
the incident at the Jungangno
Station.
Floor plan of the station
The stairways that serve as
escape routes at the Jungangno
Station are very well planned, bothin location and width. Anothersmall station from which the authorboarded a train has a single

Front of the train No.79 , where the fire started (Photo by Atsushi Okajima)

ICUS/INCEDE Newsletter Vol. 3, No. 2

page 2stairway from the platform to theconcourse positioned in the central
area; however, Jungangno Station,
the location of this fire, has widestairways at both ends of theplatform, from which a smooth
escape seems to have actually beenmade. Many were found dead at
the ticket gates that provide exits
from the central stairway fromplatform B3 to concourse B2.
The concourses on floors B2 andB1 are large, although their extensive
size could disorient people when
filled with smoke, and are allprovided with stairways at either end
connecting to adjacent floors andthere are no basic layout problems(they do not, for example, narrow
down immediately before coming
aboveground as seen in subway
stations in Japan).
Also, according to the data
provided by Mr. JAE Jim-Joo (at06:00 a.m. of February 28, 2003, FireFighting Situation Daily Report,
C e n t r a l E m e rg e n c y R e s c u e
Headquarters Situation Office),
concourses are required to havesmoke barriers at each 40 m
diameter boundary; for this reason,concourses B2 and B1 are divided
into three sections with 50-meterhigh hanging walls, which
ironically worked to effectively
concentrate the heat of the fire in
the central section.

Area and apparatuses of different floors of Jungangno Station

Basement 1

Apparatus e s agains t fireC O 2 suppression systems, portable fire
3,847 extinguishers, sprinklers, automatic fire

Concourse
Office Room

Basement 2 Concourse

detectors, smoke control installations, fire
4,586 hydrants, direction lights, emergency lights,
fire alarms

Basement 3
Platform(fire floor)

Automatic fire detectors (by smoke), fire
2,004 hydrants, fire alarms, emergency lights,
direction lights

installed on both sides of the shutter,and these were activated to close the
shutter during the fire (the author
saw the shutter close on a TV news
show at approximately 10:00 a.m.
of March 3, 2003 at Pusan Airport;
details unknown). A structurally
very complex access door isinstalled at door 1; it is unknown
whether it was used during theescape. Also, many people seem tohave died at the shutter because theirescape route was cut off when the
shutter closed suddenly. On the other
hand, the shopping area seems tohave sustained no damage and wasable to continue operation because
the shutter closed early on, and thisdemonstrates that the shutter served
its primary purpose. However, thesudden loss of an escape route when
the shutter closed remains a problem.
Disaster prevention equipmentin the station building
As shown in the table, the basic However, there are problems
with the passageway to theunderground shopping area on
floor B1. The underground
shopping area runs perpendicular
to concourse B1, and has a floor
level approximately two meters
higher than the floor of theconcourse, which does not provide
easy access either, although thereasons behind this are not clear.
In addition, a fire shutter doublingas an access control point isinstalled across the entire width ofthe opening where the stairway
from the concourse reaches the
shopping area. Smoke detectors are

Total floor
are a (m2)Floor

specifications for disasterprevention equipment in the stationbuilding are roughly equal to or
exceed those in Japan.
Unfortunately the fire was started
in a train; however, such extensive
damage would not have beensustained if the fire had been started
in concourses B1 or B2 because thesprinklers would have been
activated. No-one at the sitecommented on the smoke control
system because it may constitute anissue in court. However, theconcourses are divided into
approximately 35-meter sections tosatisfy the requirement to extract
smoke at a rate of 40,000 cubic
meters per hour in each section.
There is no knowing under thepresent conditions whether thesmoke control system worked or
had any effect; however, theairflow volume according toregulations must be approximately 
 
 
















   

  



 

 
 



    


 





 

 


ICUS/INCEDE Newsletter Vol. 3, No. 2

  


 

 

           Perspective of Daegue Jungangno Station 


page 310 times the ventilation frequency,
which is considered manageable bydiverting the general airconditioning equipment. It isnecessary to wait for the results of
the investigation on how theequipment operated during the fire,including how it was related to the
supply/exhaust openings in the
sidewalks aboveground.
Subway cars
The most significant issue may
be the combustibility of interiormaterials in the subway cars.
Japanese technical standards(Ministerial OrdinanceInterpretation Criteria III-19
defining technical standards forrailways) require: 1) the use ofnoncombustible materials; and 2)
the use of noncombustible surface
coatings for ceilings, outer panels
and linings. Noncombustible
materials in this case must satisfy
incombustibility standards forrailway vehicles stipulated by the
Ministry of Transport (now the
Ministry of Land, Infrastructure
and Transport), in which a 182 mm
x 257 mm sample may be passed
as noncombustible if it meets
criteria such as not igniting over an
ethanol flame as small as 0.5 cc,
and carbonization or deformationof less than 100 mm. Thoughreferred to as noncombustible,
these materials are quite different
from the noncombustible materials
specified by building codes(included in the specifications areconcrete, glass, rock wool, etc.;
testing methods used are the corn
alcohol calorimeter test, etc.), andit may be more accurate to describe
them as not easily igniting with amatch or lighter.
There is no knowing at this point
whether the interior materials in the
Daegu subway cars came up to thelevel of performance required by
Japanese standards for trains;
however, it is not possible to saythat the high level of heat generated
by two liters of gasoline in a

Front of the train No.80, most far from the fire
(Photo by Atsushi Okajima)
Japanese subway train would not burned uniformly and almost
ignite the interior materials and completely.
develop into an extensive fire.
Judging from the conditions ofFurthermore, devices to manually the melted plastic in concourses B2
open platform access doors in and B1, the temperature was highemergency (hereinafter referred to as in the central area, and the severest
emergency handles) are marked with scorching occurred to the tunnel
red borders to indicate their ceiling slab above the center
locations; emergency handles are portion of train No. 80, exposing
located in pairs on the seat side cover two layers of steel reinforcing bars,
at each access door in Daegu, while although the fire started in No. 1
they are provided in the cars but not car of train No. 79. These points
indicated in Japan, because Article remain big questions. Fire damage
74 of the ministerial ordinance seemed to be fairly distributed as
stipulates an exception for cars a result of the firefighting efforts
traveling in the third rail line section, which continued over an extended
etc., which allows them to be period of three hours starting frominaccessible to passengers other than the tunnel side considering that thethose who are well-informed.
fire was controlled in stages fromthe outside inwards; however,In the case of a subway train, it is thermal contamination was also thedifficult to walk between the train severest in the central area on
and the tunnel (a gap of 50 cm) after floors B2 and B1 as mentioned
exiting from an access door when the before, although the fire started attrain stops between stations. Thus the end of the station. The fire
the Japanese measure does not spread extremely fast in the earlynecessarily pose a danger; however, stages, and may have reached theit will reduce the possibility for rearmost car of the train by the time
passengers to escape from danger on the oncoming train had drawn into
their own if a train stops at a station the platform. It is therefore
important to examine carefully
as in this incident.
what effect the draught generated
by the train played in spreading the
Other Issues
The six cars of the train No. 79, fire.
*Professor, Department of
where the fire started, and the train
Environmental Studies, Nagoya
No. 80, that is12 cars altogether,
University, Japan

ICUS/INCEDE Newsletter Vol. 3, No. 2

page 4

Study of Making a Database for Deteriorated Concrete Bridges
byYoshitaka Kato and Somnuk Tangtermsirikul

In most of the Asian regions, thefragility of a structure, which isbased on the defects from design
criteria, inadequate construction
management and maintenancemanagement, etc., is high andtherefore, poses a major threat tosafety. As most of these structures
were built almost at the same time
during the Asian bubble
economic growth, there is almost
clear and certain possibility that,these structures would cause hugeand fatal structural problems at thesame time in near future causing
extensive damage to the society
and the economy as a whole. Thus
an amicable solution to the same isa demand of time and needed toeffectively guard against thishidden disaster. In order to deal
with the problem, ICUS has been
focusing on related research
activities equipped with advanced
technology and tools, such as,
numerical models, remote sensing(RS), GIS, GPS, etc. for devising
appropriate methodologies in orderto manage and maintain the urban
buildings and infrastructure, andworking actively towards
mitigation of urban disasters andenvironmental problems forsustainable development of Asian
cities with adequate safety andsecurity.

A schematic diagram of the database

Example of detailed data (digital still camera & thermograph)

ICUS along with the School of
Civil Engineering of the Asian
Institute of Technology (AIT)
established a Regional Network
Office for Urban Safety (RNUS)
last October at AIT in order to meetand deliver its above-mentioned
objective more effectively andefficiently. Recently, RNUS has
successfully initiated two joint
projects on 1) Study on Making a
Database for Deteriorated Concrete
Bridges and 2) Urban Flood Risk
Mapping using GIS, RS andMathematical Model in Bangkok.

ICUS/INCEDE Newsletter Vol. 3, No. 2

Example of the tabulated information of the bridges

page 5This article presents a brief
overview the activities of the
Project 1.
A total of 9 concrete bridges
from Bangkok metropolitan area
were selected as targets forinvestigating and making a
database in this research. The
structural data for each bridge werecollected from the organization
responsible for maintenance of thesame. A specialist in diagnosis ofconcrete structures investigatedthese bridges by visual inspectionin order to understand thedeterioration levels. At the sametime, the photos of the deteriorated
spots on the concrete bridges weretaken by digital still camera andthermograph for the database underdevelopment. The schematic
diagram of database in this researchis shown in the previous page. It
not only provides the location of
structures, but also causes andlevels of deterioration. Eachcolumn links with thecorresponding data.
In 2003, a total of 1953 bridges
are under the responsibility of the
Bangkok Metropolitan
Administrative Office (BMA).
These include a total of 31 flyovers,
598 pedestrian bridges, and 1324
canal bridges. The designed GIS
based information system shows
the location of the selected bridgeon the map of Bangkok. All thementioned 1953 bridges have been

GIS based information of bridges in Bangkok

Example of data of digital still camera
put into the system. An example of construction, and information
the GIS information for the canal about repair and maintenancebridges and an example of the work. The two photos in the righttabulated information of the canal side show an example of the visualbridges are shown on the right side data collected with digital stillof this page and lower part of the camera.
previous page. The tabulated
information of the bridges indicates
Readers may also refer to an
location of bridges on the map, name extended version of this articleof the bridges, types and size of pier, available at ICUS homepage (http:/b e a m , g i r d e r, s l a b , y e a r o f /icus.iis.u-tokyo.ac.jp).

News from ICUS Regional Network Office, RNUS, in Bangkok
After joining of Dr. Dutta of ICUS
as the Coordinator of the ICUS
Regional Network Office for Urban
Safety (RNUS) in June, 2003, theactivities of the Network Office havebeen expanding. A homepage of
RNUS has been prepared, which
includes its activities (http://
www.sce.ait.ac.th/rnus/). The twomini-projects of RNUS initiated lastyear are in progress. A brief reportof Project 1 is presented in theprevious article. Two near future
events of RNUS are 1) a seminar on

Water Resources in the 21st Century
under Climate Change Scenarios tobe held on November 14, 2003 and 2)
International Workshop of WSSI on
Seismic Risk Management forCountries of the Asia Pacific Region
to held during December 7-8, 2003
in Bangkok. RNUS is the localorganizer of this workshop.
Dr. Dutta gave the following two
invited talks in Bangkok:- on Hydrological forecasting offlood and inundation damage at

the International Seminar on
Innovation Model for Sustainable
Water Resource Management,
Kasetsart University, Bangkok,
Aug. 20, 2003 and- on Flood Risk Management: Roleof Hydrologist and need ofintegration of MetSAT andHydrologic Model at the
UNESCAP Eight Meeting of theRegional Working Group on
Meteorological Satellite
Applications and Natural Hazards
Monitoring, Sep. 8-10, 2003.

ICUS/INCEDE Newsletter Vol. 3, No. 2

page 65th ICUS Open Lecture Focused on Urban Fire DisasterThe 5th ICUS Open Lecture
was held with the theme of Urban
Fire and Its Safety Countermeasures: Lessons Learnt from
Urban Fire and Countermeasuresagainst It.
The pattern of fire occurring incities has been diversified alongwith the advancement of urban
landscapes and its increased
complexity. Still fresh in ourmemory, the fatal subway fire in
the city of Daegu, South Korea on
February 18, costing 192 human
lives was one of the worst disasters
ever happened in the world. An
urban fire in todays world may
cause the damage far beyond ourimagination by destroying costly
urban infrastructure and paralyzing
information infrastructure for along time.

A snapshot from the meeting hall during the Open Lecture
following four lectures followed
thereafter.

The Open Lecture was held on
July 3, 2003 at the Auditorium of
the Research Center for Advanced
Science and Technology (RCAST)of the University of Tokyo. Despite
the sweltering heat on that day,about 150 audiences attended themeeting and interacted with thepresenters.

The first speaker was Mr. Toshiaki
Kitazato, who is the Representative
Chief of the Local Development andDisaster Prevention Association
Former Deputy General Manager ofFire and Defense management
Agency, Former Councilor of
Cabinet Office. Mr. Kitazato
presented his lecture on Present
situation of urban fire in our country
and the countermeasures. He beganwith describing the history and thepresent situation of urban fire, andthen reported on the
countermeasures for urban fire
implemented so far from theviewpoints of urban planning, Fire
Defense Act and reinforcement offire defense force. Moreover, hetalked on the necessity to revise theFire Defense Act, referring to thereinforcement of risk management
system in Japan after the Kobe
earthquake and past building fires
occurred in Japan. Lastly, he touched
upon the countermeasures for fire
defense and disaster prevention.

Prof. Taketo Uomoto, Directorof ICUS, gave an opening address
and then introduced the outcomesof research activities carried on by
ICUS during the last one year. The

Mr. Toshiaki Tachimori, Directorof Metropolitan Expressway Public
Corporation, was the second speakerat the Open Lecuter. He gave alecture on Counter-measures for the

In the Open Lecture, eachpresenter delivered a lecture
discussing on the countermeasures
to be taken in the future in contextof (1) the present situation ofcomplicated recent urban fire, (2)fire in the tunnel on urban
highways and (3) subway fires
based on the lessons learnt from theDaegu subway fire. A fourth
important point of discussion wason (4) safe and efficient ways ofevacuation, in case of any of theabove fire occurrences.

ICUS/INCEDE Newsletter Vol. 3, No. 2

prevention of tunnel disasters
on Metropolitan Highway. He
introduced many examples oftunnel fires occurred in themetropolitan highway in thepast and countermeasures taken
against them. He reported that,
if the scale of a tunnel fire islarge, the tunnel is often
destroyed by the fire and it
takes longer time for the
restoration in many cases. He
also stated that, the first 10minutes from the onset of thefire is important for the firefighting and evacuation, and it
is important to study how andwhat activities can be done
during this time. Therefore, thetunnels on metropolitan
highways are equipped with thesystem to automatically detect
the occurrence of an accident
by image processing using
CCTV installed at the intervalo f 1 0 0 m , M r. Ta c h i m o r iinformed.
The third speaker was Professor
Makoto Tsujimoto, Department ofEnvironmental Research Major of
Urban Environmental Science,
Graduate School of Nagoya
University. Prof. Tsujimoto spokeon Issues in the Daegu City
subway fire in South Korea. Hepage 7
explained the transition ofphenomena from the onset of Daegu
City subway fire, and reported thatthe fire accident was recorded by 16
sets of TV camera, and the transitionof phenomena during the fire canbe grasped by analyzing theserecords. He said that the Guideline
for the utilization of extra deep
underground has been decided by
the Cabinet Meeting in Japan, in
which the actions to be taken for 7
risks (fire, earthquake, active fault,
inundation, etc.) have been
indicated. According to him, a study
will be made in the future on the
counteractions to be taken at thetime of accident like the one that
happened in Daegu City.
The fourth and final speaker of
the Open Lecture was Prof. Kimiro
Meguro, Associate Professor of
ICUS. Prof. Meguro gave his
lecture on Urban fire andcountermeasure for evacuation.
He showed some cases such as, theexpansion of damages by
earthquake or fire, and analysis ofhuman behavior during evacuation
by mathematical simulation and
GIS. He reported that many

Visitors to ICUS
During the period of JulySeptember, 2003, ICUS received
the following visitors.

Prof. Tachimori during his talk in the Open Lecture
precious lives were lost just after the
onset of the accident at the time of
Kobe earthquake, and stated theimportance of prior arrangements torestrain the damage as acountermeasure against theearthquake. He also stated that it isimportant to train the ability ofimagination of people to recognize
what will happen at the time of
accident, in addition to hardware

countermeasures adopted tophysically restrain the damages.

- D r. P h i s a n S a n t i t a m n o n t ,Assistant Professor, Survey
Engineering Department,
Chulalongkorn University,
Thailand (Aug. 4).

- Prof. Ioan Olariu, Structural
Mechanics Department,
Technical University of ClujNapoca, Romania (Sept. 3).

F i n a l l y, P r o f . Yo s h i f u m i
Yasuoka of ICUS made theconcluding remarks of this Open
Lecture, and expressed gratitude to
the participants; and the 5th ICUS
Open Lecture was adjourned.
(by Masahiro Setojima)

3rd International Workshop of WSSI in Bangkok during December 7-8, 2003
The World Seismic Safety
Initiative (WSSI), an undertakingof International Association ofEarthquake Engineering (IAEE), is
organizing the 3rd International
Workshop on Seismic Risk
Management for Countries of the
Asia Pacific Region in Bangkok,
Thailand during December 7-8,
2003. Since its inception in 1992,
WSSI has worked with many
countries around the world ingeneral and in Asia Pacific Regionin particular. WSSI and its
programs during those ten plus
years had some remarkablesuccesses in some countries and inothers; they have not been able to
make an impact in terms of
implementation of risk mitigation
strategies. WSSI in 2003 has moreexperience of what works and what
does not work. WSSI understands
the limits of what it can achieve withthe resources it has. To take stock in
its own programs and to learn fromits past experience and theexperience of countries WSSI has
worked with, it is decided to holdthe this Workshop. The main
purposes of this Workshop are to:
1. Learn from countries where WSSI
programs have made somepositive difference in terms of risk

mitigation and management.
2. Learn from countries where
WSSI programs have not madeany major impact in terms of risk
mitigation efforts.
3. Develop a plan in consultation
with all the attending countries
about what WSSI should do forthe next five years and where
they should focus their humanand financial resources.
The local organizing activitiesof this workshop are being carriedout by the ICUS Regional
Network Office in Bangkok,
RNUS, as the Local Organizer.

ICUS/INCEDE Newsletter Vol. 3, No. 2

page 8Awards received by students of Sustainable Engineering Divsion of ICUS
Two graduate students, Mr.
Hisashi Kanada and Mr. Misuzu
Yoshikuni, of Prof. Uomoto's
Laboratory of the Sustainable
Engineering Division of ICUS
received the Incentive Awards fortheir papers and presentations at theAnnual Conference of the Japan
Concrete Institute held on July 28,
2003. The title of the paper of Mr.
Kanada was "Application of multispectral method to inspection of salt

damaged concrete structures". Mr.
Yoshikuni presented the paper on"Elucidation of the fundamental
theory of concrete conveyancesystem using DEM". ICUS Staff
congratulate both the students.

Editors Noteoffice. Frankly speaking, at that
instance, it was not easy for us torecall what we should do. In
particular for students and staffs
from foreign countries it seemed
difficult to understand how tobehave.

Taegu, Korea. Fire is one of themost serious damages induces fromt h e e a r t h q u a k e . To d a y searthquake has evoked me theimportance of the first behavior,that is, stopping all fire sources,even in shaking. Attention !!! In
Japan we may have big
earthquakes anytime in theseyears!!!

This afternoon (October 15,2003) we had a quite big
earthquake in the Kanto area. The
seismic intensity around Tokyo
was reported as the rank of 3 to
4. When it occurred, I was in myoffice on the 5 th floor in theInstitute of Industrial Sciencebuilding. The vibration was thebiggest that I have ever felt in myThis issue of the ICUS Newsletterfeatures the fire in urban areas,
where the main article is on theserious fire at a subway station inInternational Center for Urban Safety Engineering, ICUS/INCEDE
Institute of Industrial Science, The University of Tokyo
4-6-1 Komaba, Meguro-ku, Tokyo 153-8505, Japan
Tel: (+81-3)5452-6472, Fax: (+81-3)5452-6476,
E-mail:icus@iis.u-tokyo.ac.jp
http://icus-incede.iis.u-tokyo.ac.jp/

International Center for
Urban Safety Engineering

ICUS/INCEDE Newsletter Vol. 3, No. 2(Y. Yasuoka)