Red Bull's Mark Webber led the championship entering the race but spun out soon after racing belatedly began, while teammate Sebastian Vettel led from pole position until 10 laps from the finish when his engine failed.
The incident-strewn race began behind a safety car but was red flagged after only two laps due to persistent rain and standing water on the track. After resuming, the safety car remained out until lap 18 while water was cleared. The race went the distance but finished in darkness at 6 p.m. local time (0900 GMT).
McLaren's Lewis Hamilton finished second to keep his title chances alive and Ferrari's Felipe Massa was third.
With two races remaining in the season, Alonso moved to 231 points, ahead of Webber on 220 and Hamilton on 210. Vettel remained on 206 points and his championship chances look all but over.
"Nothing changes. It was bad luck for Mark and Sebastian but anything can happen in the next two races."
Reigning champion Jenson Button dropped out of title contention after finishing 12th.
Two laps after the cars were finally released from behind the safety car, Webber ran slightly wide at a corner, putting his tires on the slippery ripple strip and slid across the track into a wall. Webber's car drifted back across the track, and Mercedes' Nico Rosberg could not avoid hitting the Red Bull, ending the race for both drivers.
"Totally my mistake. Wasn't my day," Webber told the BBC. "This is my second non-finish of the year. There are still two races to go, I'll do my absolute best."
Mercedes' Michael Schumacher finished fourth to match his best result of the season. Renault's Robert Kubica was fifth in the inaugural Korean GP, while Force India's Vitantonio Liuzzi sixth in his season-best finish.
Williams' Rubens Barrichello and Nico Hulkenberg were seventh and tenth respectively, sandwiching the Sauber pair of Kamui Kobayashi and Nick Heidfeld in eighth and ninth.
Hamilton moved up from fourth to third in the drivers' standings, with renewed hope of snatching the title should Alonso and Webber falter in Brazil or Abu Dhabi.
"Its not impossible," Hamilton said. "We will keep pushing and keep the pressure on and as you saw today, things can happen.
"Ferrari and Fernando are very quick but it's not out of reach."
The start of the race was delayed by 10 minutes in the hope that the rain, which was light but persistent, would clear. It got under way behind the safety car, but it quickly became apparent that conditions were undriveable, with pools of water on the straights.
Alonso said over his radio that "these are the worst conditions I have ever driven in; it's completely impossible."
His words were echoed by McLaren's Jenson Button.
"It's like a lake on the straights," Button told his team. "You can't even see the front tires."
The red flag emerged and cars sat on the grid for 49 minutes while stewards waited for showers to pass and teams and drivers debated whether a restart was possible.
The race eventually resumed at 4.42 p.m. local time behind the safety car which stayed out for 36 minutes until the track was deemed safe for racing.
Button was the first driver to gamble on switching from wet-weather to intermediate tires, but the timing of his pit stop was poor and he emerged behind a train of slower cars and ended up near the tail of the field for the rest of the race.
Alonso had a bad pit stop of his own soon after when he came into the stop at an angle, and his team struggled to remove a wheelnut. That enabled Hamilton to move up to second, but the McLaren driver soon gave the position back by running wide at the first corner.
All the while, Vettel looked untouchable in front of the field until he dramatically slowed on lap 46 of 55, and Alonso went past on the start-finish straight. Smoke began to billow from the back of the Red Bull, and the German's race, and likely his championship hopes, were over. Read more at http://sg.news.yahoo.com/ap/20101024/tsp-car-f1-korean-gp-8th-ld-writethru-6e81073_1.html
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