Last Recovered Body at Hwaseong Fire Scene: One 'Korean in His 40s'

At the AriCell factory in Hwaseong, Gyeonggi Province, where a fire caused 31 casualties, the last recovered body was confirmed to be a missing Korean.

The Gyeonggi Southern Provincial Police Agency's AriCell fire accident investigation headquarters announced on the 25th, "During the search this morning, we found the body of one missing person whose status had not been confirmed until yesterday. The deceased was a Korean national, and their identity was confirmed through fingerprints."

The deceased was identified as Mr. A, a Korean man in his 40s. Among the 23 confirmed deaths, this is the third identity confirmed after the first deceased, Mr. B, a Korean man in his 50s, and Mr. C, a man in his 40s who was naturalized from China to Korea and was recovered as a partial body.

On the 25th, officials from the National Forensic Service are conducting an on-site investigation at the fire scene of a primary battery manufacturing factory in Hwaseong-si, Gyeonggi Province. Photo by Jinhyung Kang aymsdream@

All identified individuals are Korean nationals. There have been no confirmed identities of foreign nationals so far.

Earlier, on the second day of the internal search, at 11:34 a.m., the fire department found Mr. A's body on the second floor of Building 3 at the AriCell factory, the fire site.

The body was severely damaged, so it was expected that identification would take considerable time; however, fingerprints were relatively well-preserved, allowing for identification of personal details.

Meanwhile, on the morning of the 24th at around 10:30 a.m., a fire broke out at the AriCell factory in Jeongok-ri, Seosin-myeon, Hwaseong City, resulting in 23 deaths and 8 injuries. Due to the severe damage to the bodies of the deceased, only three identities have been confirmed among all the fatalities so far.