On the morning of 18 February 2003, a man set fire to a carriage of train 1079 on Line 1 of the Daegu subway as it pulled into Jungangno Station. That train’s doors were open, and most of its passengers got out.

Three or four minutes later, train 1080, running the other way, pulled into the same smoke-filled station. According to AP’s translation of the radio transcript, the control centre told its driver: “When you enter the Joongang Station, drive carefully. There is a fire.” There was no order to stop or to pass through. The train stopped beside the burning one, the power failed, and it could not leave.

The driver radioed for instructions and was told to stand by. Some time later, according to a police briefing reported by Pressian, a controller told him to “kill the train and go”, meaning pull the master key and leave. He did. Without the key, almost nothing on the train worked, including the doors. Police said the doors were open on only two of the train’s six cars. Each door had a manual release lever under the seats, but few passengers knew it was there, and the cars were dark and full of smoke.

192 people died and 151 were injured. A study by Won Hwa Hong of Kyungpook National University counts 142 deaths inside the train and 49 outside it.

Then police found that the radio transcript the subway corporation handed over was missing the “kill the train” exchange. It was still on the original tape. Two audit staff had cut it out as a “sensitive” passage.

The arsonist, Kim Dae-han, got life in prison and died there in 2004. The two drivers and six other employees got up to five years, the legal maximum for negligent manslaughter. How much the key itself mattered is still argued, since the power had already failed before it was pulled.

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