Seoul: At least four people were killed and seven injured today after an angry tenant set fire to a residential building in Seoul and attacked escaping tenants with a knife, police said.
Police arrested the 31-year-old suspected arsonist, identified only as Jeong, after the blaze at the five-storey studio apartment building in the southern district of Nonhyeon.
Some 100 residents fled the morning blaze and 11 were taken to hospital. Four were later pronounced dead and the other seven are still being treated, police said.
It was not immediately clear whether the dead or injured died from the fire or from knife wounds.
Cable news channel YTN and Yonhap news agency said Jeong told investigators: "I committed the crime because I no longer wanted to live."
The jobless man sprayed and ignited inflammable liquid over his own room on the third floor and the blaze spread to other floors.
Some 100 firefighters and 33 fire engines put out the fire in half an hour.
Police were trying to identify the victims. Yonhap said the tenants included some Chinese nationals as well as Koreans.
