Four people were killed and about 70 others injured after a fire set as part of a traditional South Korean festival spread out of control, police said yesterday.
The accident happened when organizers set fire to reed-like plants at the top of Hwawang mountain in southeastern South Korea on Monday night as part of the full moon festival, said Park Joong-soo, an officer at Gyeongnam Provincial Police Agency.
The blaze, fanned by sudden winds, spread over firebreaks, forcing spectators to flee. Four of them, who were on top of a large rock to get a better view of the festival, fell about 10m to their deaths while trying to dodge the fire, Park said.
PHOTO: AP
He said the fire left about 70 others injured, with four or five suffering serious burns.
Police combed the mountain yesterday in a search for additional casualties.
It is a South Korean tradition to set fire to grass along rice fields on the night of the first full moon of the Lunar New Year in the belief that it helps bring good harvests and drives out evil spirits, though it is no longer widely practiced.
Yonhap news agency said police questioned two festival organizers at the county government in Changnyeong, about 260km southeast of Seoul, over whether they had taken sufficient safety measures for the event.
Yonhap said organizers did not ensure enough distance between the festival flames and spectators at some points, and that there were only 400 safety officials overseeing the event attended by 15,000 people.
Meanwhile, the man chosen to head South Korea’s national police withdrew his nomination yesterday, taking responsibility for a blaze that erupted during a violent Seoul protest and killed six people.
“I’m resigning ... to assume moral responsibility,” Kim Seok-ki told reporters, a day after prosecutors charged 27 people but cleared police of any blame for the tragedy.
Kim said he is also quitting his current post of Seoul police chief.
He said he decided to step down because a political dispute over his nomination to the national post should not escalate when South Korea faces “an unprecedented economic crisis.”
The fire, which killed a policeman and five demonstrators, erupted on Jan. 20, two days after Kim’s nomination.
People with missing teeth might be able to grow new ones, said Japanese dentists, who are testing a pioneering drug they hope will offer an alternative to dentures and implants. Unlike reptiles and fish, which usually replace their fangs on a regular basis, it is widely accepted that humans and most other mammals only grow two sets of teeth. However, hidden underneath our gums are the dormant buds of a third generation, said Katsu Takahashi, head of oral surgery at the Medical Research Institute Kitano Hospital in Osaka, Japan. His team launched clinical trials at Kyoto University Hospital in October, administering an experimental
IVY LEAGUE GRADUATE: Suspect Luigi Nicholas Mangione, whose grandfather was a self-made real-estate developer and philanthropist, had a life of privilege The man charged with murder in the killing of the CEO of UnitedHealthcare made it clear he was not going to make things easy on authorities, shouting unintelligibly and writhing in the grip of sheriff’s deputies as he was led into court and then objecting to being brought to New York to face trial. The displays of resistance on Tuesday were not expected to significantly delay legal proceedings for Luigi Nicholas Mangione, who was charged in last week’s Manhattan killing of Brian Thompson, the leader of the US’ largest medical insurance company. Little new information has come out about motivation,
‘MONSTROUS CRIME’: The killings were overseen by a powerful gang leader who was convinced his son’s illness was caused by voodoo practitioners, a civil organization said Nearly 200 people in Haiti were killed in brutal weekend violence reportedly orchestrated against voodoo practitioners, with the government on Monday condemning a massacre of “unbearable cruelty.” The killings in the capital, Port-au-Prince, were overseen by a powerful gang leader convinced that his son’s illness was caused by followers of the religion, the civil organization the Committee for Peace and Development (CPD) said. It was the latest act of extreme violence by powerful gangs that control most of the capital in the impoverished Caribbean country mired for decades in political instability, natural disasters and other woes. “He decided to cruelly punish all
NOTORIOUS JAIL: Even from a distance, prisoners maimed by torture, weakened by illness and emaciated by hunger, could be distinguished Armed men broke the bolts on the cell and the prisoners crept out: haggard, bewildered and scarcely believing that their years of torment in Syria’s most brutal jail were over. “What has happened?” asked one prisoner after another. “You are free, come out. It is over,” cried the voice of a man filming them on his telephone. “Bashar has gone. We have crushed him.” The dramatic liberation of Saydnaya prison came hours after rebels took the nearby capital, Damascus, having sent former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad fleeing after more than 13 years of civil war. In the video, dozens of
RSS