Deadly fire at South Korea battery maker due to quality failure, police say

SEOUL (Reuters) - A fire at a South Korean lithium battery maker in June that killed 23 people occurred as the company raced to produce batteries to meet a deadline without taking action to address signs of dangerous quality failures, police said on Friday.

Nine other workers were injured in the fire at battery maker Aricell, majority owned by S-Connect. Calls to Aricell seeking comment following the police announcement were not immediately answered.