A fish seller died yesterday after drinking poison and setting himself ablaze during a protest demanding compensation for South Korea's worst oil spill, officials said.
The suicide by Ji Chang-hwan follows the recent deaths of two fish farmers, who also drank poison in despair at the destruction of their livelihoods from last month's massive slick, which devastated the nation's west coast.
Ji, 56, died from injuries sustained on Friday when he drank a bottle of herbicide before running on to a stage and dousing himself with paint thinner, witnesses said. He then set himself on fire with a cigarette lighter at a rally in the coastal town of Taean in South Chungcheong Province.
"Mr Ji passed away at 8:07am," a spokesman for Taean Town Medical Center said by phone.
His body was transferred from the medical center to a morgue ahead of preparations for his funeral, said the spokesman, Lee Jung-Hoon.
Ji was among 5,000 people taking part in the rally calling for special laws aimed at compensating victims fully for damage caused by the spill.
The protestors, wearing headbands, waved banners, dead fish and tools used for digging out clams and chanting: "We're dying one after another. Enact special laws."
Taean, 110km southwest of Seoul, was severely hit when a barge, drifting in stormy weather after its towing cable snapped, smashed into the 147,000-ton Hong Kong-registered tanker Hebei Spirit on Dec. 7.
The ship was holed in three places, pouring 10,900 tonnes of oil into the ocean, destroying scores of nearby sea farms and polluting miles of beaches along the Yellow Sea coast.
Tens of thousands of police, troops and volunteers have undertaken a huge clean-up but environmentalists say the damage could last for years.
The recent deaths highlighted mounting anger and despair among residents in the affected areas as authorities are at a loss as how to divide emergency financial aid and donations raised after the incident.
"Residents here are seething with anger," Lee said, adding that another protest has been planned outside the National Assembly and the Samsung Group headquarters on Wednesday. The barge was owned by Samsung Heavy Industries.
Taean residents are calling on companies involved in the spill to pay full compensation and take "unlimited responsibility" for the damage, which runs into the millions of dollars.
Police plan next week to announce the results of an investigation into the accident.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
DITCH TACTICS: Kenyan officers were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch suspected to have been deliberately dug by Haitian gang members A Kenyan policeman deployed in Haiti has gone missing after violent gangs attacked a group of officers on a rescue mission, a UN-backed multinational security mission said in a statement yesterday. The Kenyan officers on Tuesday were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch “suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,” the statement said, adding that “specialized teams have been deployed” to search for the missing officer. Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media. Gang violence has left
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including