Puchon, South Korea, September 11, 1998

An explosion ripped through a gas filling station in a city west of Seoul on Friday, injuring at least 30 people, police said.

Thousands of people fled their homes as fire, touched off by the explosion, raged out of control and spread to nearby buildings in Puchon, 25 miles from Seoul.

Television footage showed columns of black smoke rising from the station, which had hundreds of barrel-shaped tanks stored inside.

At least 20 fire engines rushed to the scene, but efforts to extinguish the fire were hampered by the danger of more explosions. The fire was extinguished in three hours after most of the gas stored in the station had been consumed by the flames.

Police said 30 people, including eight firefighters, were hospitalized with burns and other injuries.

The cause of the explosion was not immediately known.

``I heard a loud bang, and I turned and saw flames from a taxi filling its gas tank. Soon there were a series of explosions,″ Kim Sun-jin, a witness, told SBS-TV.

Scores of taxis and other cars were scorched in the explosion and several adjacent buildings were engulfed in flames, police said. The blast also shattered windowpanes in the neighborhood.