(LEAD) Four killed in Dongtan shopping mall fire

All News 14:29 February 04, 2017

(ATTN: UPDATES with details; ADDS photo)

HWASEONG, Gyeonggi Province, Feb. 4 (Yonhap) -- Four people were killed Saturday as a fire broke out at a shopping mall connected to a couple of residential skyscrapers in Dongtan new town in Hwaseong, Gyeonggi Province, fire authorities said.

The fire started at a kids park in the three-story building at around 11 a.m. No children were inside the kids zone at that time as it was in the middle of being demolished.

Firefighters said they found the bodies of the four -- three men and one woman -- after getting the fire under control.

Plumes of smoke billow up from a shopping mall in Dongtan, a new town in Hwaseong, Gyeonggi Province, as it caught fire on Feb. 4, 2017. (Yonhap)

Plumes of smoke were seen billowing from the building. More than one hundred residents of the main Metapolis apartment complex were immediately evacuated.

Ten residents were sent to a nearby hospital for smoke inhalation.

Metapolis is a residential and commercial complex constructed in 2010. It includes four residential towers: two 66-story ones, one 60-story tower and another with 55 stories. The fire occurred in the shopping mall linking two of the buildings.
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