Thursday, October 23, 2025 - A woman in South Korea is facing criminal charges after she allegedly set fire to her apartment building while trying to k!ll a cockroach with an improvised flamethrower, leading to the de@th of her neighbour.
According to People, which reported the incident, police in
Osan, about 30 miles south of Seoul, said they have issued an arrest warrant
for the woman, who is in her 20s, describing her as “a flight risk.”
The fire reportedly broke out around 5:30 a.m. on Monday,
October 20, after the woman allegedly used “a lighter and a flammable spray” to
burn a cockroach inside her apartment.
Citing South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency, they intend to
charge the woman with accidentally starting a fire and causing de@th by
negligence.
The BBC, which had earlier reported the case on Tuesday,
Oct. 21, quoted local police as saying the woman admitted she “tried to torch
the cockroach with a lighter and a flammable spray,” adding that “she had used
the method before.”
Investigators said the fire quickly spread through the
building, forcing several residents to attempt escape through windows.
According to Yonhap, the victim was a Chinese national in
her 30s who had recently given birth to her first child two months ago.
When smoke filled her fifth-floor apartment, she and her
husband reportedly opened a window and called for help, passing their baby to a
neighbour in the adjacent building.
“The woman’s husband managed to leap across to the
neighbouring building, but when the new mother tried to do the same, she fell
five stories and sustained serious injuries,” People reported. She was taken to
the hospital but later di£d.
The BBC also confirmed that “one of the woman’s neighbours
di£d after falling to the ground in a failed attempt to escape through a
window,” while eight other residents suffered minor injuries from smoke
inhalation.
Police in Osan said investigations are ongoing and that the
case will be transferred to local prosecutors once completed.
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