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Around 100 passengers were injured and some were feared dead Tuesday in suspected arson attack on a subway train in the southeastern city of Daegu, South Korean police said.

"We fear there are about 100 casualties and we don't know whether there are any fatalities at this point," said a police spokesman.

Witnesses said a man boarded a compartment of the subway train in the center of the city and set alight a canister containing flammable liquid around 10:00 am (0100 GMT).

"It burst into flames and quickly spread after he dropped the canister," the police spokesman said.

"Judging from what eye-witnesses say, it looks like an arson attack," he said, adding the man who started the fire might have died.

Fire Department officials said 112 people had been treated in hospital following the subway fire.

"The number of injured now totals 112 and could rise, but there have yet to be any confirmed deaths," Lee So-Gun of Daegu's fire department emergency room told AFP.

Television footage showed thick black smoke rising from the entrances into the subway system in the center of the city, some 200 kilometres (120 miles) southeast of Seoul.

Fire fighters and police wearing protective masks were seen carrying the injured on stretchers from the smoke-filled underground subway station. 

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