Cops: 18 Hurt in Hong Kong Subway Arson

'Incoherent' man lit firebomb during rush hour
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted Feb 11, 2017 8:31 AM CST

A man was arrested in Hong Kong Friday night for allegedly lighting a firebomb in a subway car during rush hour, injuring 18 people, two of them critically. Police said there was no evidence to indicate the fire was a terror attack. Police District Commander Kwok Pak-chung said the 60-year-old man told rescuers as he was being taken to a hospital that he was the one who set the fire, and that he had done so for an unspecified personal reason. "He was incoherent," Kwok said, adding that police believe he used a flammable liquid, the AP reports. Hundreds of police and firefighters responded to the fire, which shut down the busy Tsim Sha Tsui station in Kowloon.

Videos circulating on social media showed a chaotic scene of a fire inside the subway car and a man lying on the platform as people frantically used clothing to try to put out flames on his pants. Passenger Ray Chau tells the South China Morning Post that there was screaming as smoke rapidly filled the train. "When the train reached Tsim Sha Tsui, people immediately dashed out from the carriages. It was chaotic, like a scene out of Train to Busan," Chau says, referring to a South Korean zombie thriller. "The train journey felt particularly long," he says. "There was nothing we could do but inhale the smoke." (More Hong Kong stories.)

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