At least seven people were killed and dozens of others injured in a suspected arson attack on Thursday at the office of a law firm in the southern city of Daegu, South Korea, according to the police.
Another 49 people were hurt, mostly due to smoke inhalation, and 31 were being treated at local hospitals.
According to the Yonhap news agency, the suspected arsonist, a man in his 50s, is believed to be one of the people who perished. Police are investigating who or what could have been the target of the alleged arson.
Police spokesman Jeong Hyeon-wook said that with the suspect dead, there were unlikely to be criminal charges relating to the incident unless an accomplice was found.
Rescue workers wearing helmets and oxygen masks escorted people out of the building's front door and used ladders and broken windows to get inside the second floor before carrying out the dead on stretchers. Police and forensic investigators were later seen examining the severely damaged and blackened walls and doors.
As the firefighters quelled the blaze, other survivors could be seen waiting on crowded rooftops for assistance in the affluent business district of Beomeo-dong.
Daegu was the site of one of the worst arson attacks ever in South Korea in 2003, when 192 people died after a 56-year-old man set a fire on a subway train. The attack remains the deadliest deliberate incident of violence during peacetime in the country's history.
