At least 18 people have been killed in one of South Korea's worst wildfire outbreaks, with multiple raging blazes causing "unprecedented damage," the acting president said today.
More than a dozen fires broke out over the weekend, scorching wide swathes of the southeast and forcing about 27,000 people to evacuate, with the fire cutting off roads and downing communications lines as residents fled in panic.
Photo: AFP
Overnight into today, the death toll jumped as wind-driven flames tore through neighborhoods and razed an ancient temple.
"Eighteen people died in the wildfires," a South Korean Ministry of the Interior and Safety official said.
According to the ministry, the wildfires have charred 17,398 hectares, with the blaze in Uiseong County alone accounting for 87 percent of the total.
The government has raised the crisis alert to its highest level and taken the rare step of transferring thousands of prisoners.
"Wildfires burning for a fifth consecutive day ... are causing unprecedented damage," South Korean Acting President Han Duck-soo said.
He told an emergency safety and disaster meeting that the blazes were "developing in a way that is exceeding both existing prediction models and earlier expectations."
"Throughout the night, chaos continued as power and communication lines were cut in several areas and roads were blocked," he added.
In the city of Andong, some evacuees sheltering in an elementary school gym said they had to flee so quickly they could bring nothing with them.
"The wind was so strong," said Kwon So-han, a 79-year-old resident in Andong, adding that as soon as he got the evacuation order he fled.
"The fire came from the mountain and fell on my house," he said. "Those who haven't experienced it won't know. I could only bring my body."
By today, one of the fires was threatening historic Hahoe Folk Village — a UNESCO-listed world heritage site popular with tourists, but now under an emergency alert.
Thousands of firefighters have been deployed, but "strong winds reaching speeds of 25mps persisted from yesterday afternoon through the night, forcing the suspension of helicopter and drone operations," Han said.
The changing wind patterns and dry weather have "revealed the limitations of conventional firefighting methods," he added.
Hundreds of soldiers have joined the effort, with helicopter support also provided by US forces stationed in the South.
The fires are "the most devastating" yet in South Korea, Han said.
Last year was South Korea's hottest year on record, with the Korea Meteorological Administration saying that the average annual temperature was 14.5°C — two degrees higher than the preceding 30-year average of 12.5C°.
Some types of extreme weather have a well-established link with climate change, such as heatwaves or heavy rainfall.
Other phenomena, such as forest fires, droughts, snowstorms and tropical storms, can result from a combination of complex factors.
"The region had been experiencing unusually dry weather with below-average precipitation," Han said, adding that the South had been hit by more than double the number of fires this year than last.
The major fire in Uiseong was reportedly caused by a person tending to a family grave who accidentally ignited the blaze.
The government has said more than 27,000 people have been relocated to temporary shelters, and it is promising to provide emergency relief and financial support to those displaced.
DEATH CONSTANTLY LOOMING: Decades of detention took a major toll on Iwao Hakamada’s mental health, his lawyers describing him as ‘living in a world of fantasy’ A Japanese man wrongly convicted of murder who was the world’s longest-serving death row inmate has been awarded US$1.44 million in compensation, an official said yesterday. The payout represents ￥12,500 (US$83) for each day of the more than four decades that Iwao Hakamada spent in detention, most of it on death row when each day could have been his last. It is a record for compensation of this kind, Japanese media said. The former boxer, now 89, was exonerated last year of a 1966 quadruple murder after a tireless campaign by his sister and others. The case sparked scrutiny of the justice system in
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
A French-Algerian man went on trial in France on Monday for burning to death his wife in 2021, a case that shocked the public and sparked heavy criticism of police for failing to take adequate measures to protect her. Mounir Boutaa, now 48, stalked his Algerian-born wife Chahinez Daoud following their separation, and even bought a van he parked outside her house near Bordeaux in southwestern France, which he used to watch her without being detected. On May 4, 2021, he attacked her in the street, shot her in both legs, poured gasoline on her and set her on fire. A neighbor hearing
‘HUMAN NEGLIGENCE’: The fire is believed to have been caused by someone who was visiting an ancestral grave and accidentally started the blaze, the acting president said Deadly wildfires in South Korea worsened overnight, officials said yesterday, as dry, windy weather hampered efforts to contain one of the nation’s worst-ever fire outbreaks. More than a dozen different blazes broke out over the weekend, with Acting South Korean Interior and Safety Minister Ko Ki-dong reporting thousands of hectares burned and four people killed. “The wildfires have so far affected about 14,694 hectares, with damage continuing to grow,” Ko said. The extent of damage would make the fires collectively the third-largest in South Korea’s history. The largest was an April 2000 blaze that scorched 23,913 hectares across the east coast. More than 3,000
RSS