Incheon Seo-gu recently announced on the 6th that it has officially requested the government and Incheon City to designate the affected area as a special disaster zone in relation to the electric vehicle fire incident in the underground parking lot of an apartment in Cheongna International City.
If designated as a special disaster zone, residents of the area can receive partial support for housing costs from the national government and benefit from reductions or deferrals in national and local taxes, health insurance premiums, pension insurance premiums, and communication and electricity bills.
Kang Beom-seok, head of Seo-gu Office, said, "This electric vehicle fire incident in the Cheongna apartment is an urban disaster situation that can occur anytime and anywhere," adding, "We hope the central government will actively consider declaring a special disaster zone to provide prompt financial support so that the affected residents can return to their daily lives as soon as possible."
Earlier, the Incheon branches of the People Power Party and the Democratic Party also urged the designation of the affected area as a special disaster zone, noting that power and water outages caused by the fire have continued for several days, forcing residents to live in shelters amid the heatwave.
Incheon Cheongna Apartment Underground Parking Lot CCTV Footage [Image Source=Yonhap News / Provided by Reader]
At around 6:15 a.m. on the 1st, a fire broke out in a Mercedes-Benz electric vehicle in the underground first-floor parking lot of an apartment in Cheongna-dong, Seo-gu, Incheon. As a result, 23 people, including 22 residents and one firefighter, were injured and received treatment at hospitals. About 40 vehicles were burned, and over 100 vehicles suffered heat damage and soot stains.
Water supply has not been properly restored to all households in the apartment complex of 1,581 units for five days as of that day. Additionally, electricity supply has been cut off to about 480 households in five apartment buildings, preventing the use of elevators and cooling equipment amid the heatwave.
Seo-gu has prepared three additional temporary housing facilities, increasing from the original seven, due to delays in restoration work such as electricity repair and dust cleaning inside each unit.
Therefore, temporary residence is now available for a total of about 330 households. The additional shelters are Hana Bank Training Center (Room 100), Bank of Korea Training Center (Room 40), and Cheongho Elementary and Middle Schools (30 shelters).
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