Temple burnt, UNESCO village evacuated as South Korea wildfires spread
Residents of a UNESCO-listed village were ordered to evacuate while a historic Buddhist temple was burned to the ground Tuesday as South Korea scrambled to contain worsening wildfires.
Blazes tearing across the country’s southeast have killed four people, with authorities transferring thousands of prisoners and residents as dry windy weather hampers efforts to contain more than a dozen different fires which broke out over the weekend.
The fires are collectively the third largest in South Korea’s history, with acting Interior and Safety Minister Ko Ki-dong saying 14,694 hectares (36,310 acres) had been affected early Tuesday.
“Strong winds, dry weather, and haze are hampering firefighting efforts,” Ko told a disaster and safety meeting.
The government has declared a state of emergency in four regions.
“The wind was so strong that I couldn’t stand still,” said evacuated Andong resident Kwon So-han.
“The fire came from the mountain and fell on my house. Nothing could be done,” the 79-year-old told AFP.
Authorities in Andong issued an emergency alert late Tuesday to residents of the historic Hahoe Folk Village — a UNESCO-listed world heritage site popular with tourists — as the blaze drew closer.
“The Uiseong Angye wildfire is moving in the direction” of that area, the alert said. “Residents are requested to evacuate immediately.”
In Uiseong, AFP reporters saw the sky full of smoke and haze, with the Korea Forest Service saying that the containment rate for the fire in that area had decreased from 60 to 55 percent on Tuesday.
Early in the morning, workers at the Gounsa Temple, which was more than a thousand years old, were attempting to move valuable artefacts and cover up Buddhist statues to protect them from possible damage.
“We used fire retardant blankets,” Joo Jung-wan, a Gyeongbuk Seobu Cultural Heritage Care Center worker told AFP, saying that a giant gilded Buddha statue was too large to move so had been carefully covered.
Hours later, an official at the Korea Heritage Service told AFP that the temple had been burnt down.
“It is very heartbreaking and painful to see the precious temples that are over a thousand years old being lost,” monk Deung-woon told AFP.
– Family grave –
More than 6,700 firefighters have been deployed to battle the wildfires, according to the Ministry of Interior and Safety, with nearly two-fifths of the personnel dispatched to Uiseong.
As the fires raged, a Ministry of Justice official told AFP around 3,500 inmates were being moved out of harm’s way from correctional facilities in North Gyeongsang province.
In Daegu and the North Gyeongsang region, “the air is extremely dry and strong winds are blowing, creating the risk that even a small spark could quickly spread into a large wildfire”, an official from the local meteorological administration said.
The fire in Uiseong was reportedly caused by a person who was tending to a family grave site and accidentally triggered the conflagration, Prime Minister Han Duck-soo said during a cabinet meeting.
“Most wildfires are caused by human negligence and the public should strictly follow wildfire prevention guidelines,” he added.
South Korea’s worst fire was an April 2000 blaze that scorched 23,913 hectares across the east coast.
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.
Neighbouring Japan was also experiencing wildfires over the weekend, with blazes in multiple areas.
Japan saw the country’s worst wildfire in more than half a century earlier this month. It engulfed about 2,900 hectares — around half the size of Manhattan –- and killed at least one person.
AFP
