Explosion and Fire at Lotte Chemical Daesan Plant... Factory Interior Destroyed and Residents Suffer Damage

Around 3 a.m. on the 4th, an explosion and fire occurred at the Lotte Chemical Daesan Plant in Seosan, causing the exterior wall of a nearby temporary building to collapse.

[Asia Economy (Seosan) Reporter Jeong Il-woong] A large-scale internal facility of the Seosan Lotte Chemical Daesan Plant was destroyed by an explosion and fire, causing numerous human and property damages to nearby residents.

According to Chungnam Province, Seosan City, and Lotte Chemical Daesan Plant on the 4th, a fire broke out with an explosion sound around 3 a.m. at the naphtha cracking center (NCC) of the Lotte Chemical Daesan Plant.

The naphtha cracking center is a facility that pyrolyzes naphtha at ultra-high temperatures above 1200 degrees Celsius to produce ethylene, propylene, pyrolysis gasoline, and others. Fire authorities and police believe the explosion occurred during the naphtha compression cracking process.

Immediately after the fire broke out, the fire department issued a Level 2 response, deploying about 270 personnel and 66 firefighting vehicles to the site, and extinguished the major fire around 5:11 a.m., about two hours later. Complete extinguishment was achieved around 9 a.m.

There were no fatalities in this accident. However, two people were seriously injured and 33 were lightly injured. They were transported to nearby Seosan Central Hospital, Cheonan Dankook University Hospital, and other locations for treatment. The list of injured includes eight Lotte Chemical Daesan Plant employees and 27 civilians.

The damage inside and outside the Daesan Plant due to the fire was also significant. First, internal facilities covering about 120,000 square meters of the plant were destroyed. Lotte Chemical Daesan Plant stated that operations of seven facilities within the entire plant have been suspended, and the schedule for resuming operations will be adjusted according to the maintenance status of the facilities damaged by the fire.

As of 12:30 p.m. on the same day, the damage situation room received 100 damage reports, including 62 cases of property damage and 38 cases of human injury.

In this regard, the police have formed a dedicated investigation team of 15 members for the explosion accident, focusing on collecting data on the processes conducted at the fire site (Daesan Plant) and securing CCTV footage capturing the situation at the time of the accident.

A Chungnam police official said, “Once the fire cools down, a joint inspection will be conducted with the National Forensic Service. We will also secure the on-site CCTV footage to check if there is footage of the accident and plan to summon Daesan Plant officials for statements.”

Meanwhile, Seosan City sent an emergency disaster message immediately after the accident to warn local residents and set up a countermeasure situation room at the Daesan-eup Administrative Welfare Center to receive damage reports.

Seosan Mayor Maeng Jeong-ho said, “Lotte Chemical should provide detailed explanations about the explosion and fire accident to local residents,” adding, “Above all, appropriate compensation should be given to the affected residents, and a public apology and measures to prevent recurrence should be announced to all local citizens.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.