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| Wildfires spread along the ridges of mountains in Juwangsan National Park in Cheongseong, North Gyeongsang Province, Wednesday. (Yonhap) |
Death toll rises to 27; authorities say fire spread is fastest on record; power, water supply, traffic disrupted
Three wildfires continued to ravage southern South Korea for the seventh consecutive day on Thursday, with exhausted firefighters battling the deadly blazes while evacuees faced the devastation of losing their homes in the country’s most destructive wildfire disaster.
The blazes scorched over 36,000 hectares of woodland — equivalent t about half the size of Seoul — despite a week of containment efforts, claiming 27 lives and injuring 32 as of Thursday afternoon, according to the authorities. Disaster authorities said that the wind-driven wildfires had spread at some 8 to 10 kilometers per hour.
Though rainfall was expected Thursday, the forestry official announced it may not be enough to contain wildfires.
"We plan to make every effort, considering the possibility that the wildfire may persist for an extended period," said Lim Sang-seop, who heads the Korea Forest Service, in a press briefing Thursday.
Prolonged evacuations, along with power and water being cut off, have exhausted many evacuees.
One Andong-based village council chief, surnamed Jung, was also quoted by Yonhap as saying that the evacuees from his village lacked essential relief supplies, including underwear and toothpaste.
“The residents received their first aid kits, but additional supplies are needed as the evacuation is taking longer than expected,” Jung said.
Though most of the evacuees were elderly rural residents, their emergency medications were reported to be insufficient.
The Safety Ministry and different local disaster relief teams supplied daily necessities and bedding. But some of the shelters, like Gilan Middle School in Andong, reportedly failed to receive tents for displaced residents, leaving some elderly victims cold.
The disaster authorities stated that they will try to make additional measures to minimize the evacuees’ inconvenience by using both private and public lodging.
The government announced that it had set up two major support centers to expand current medical and psychological aid, offer relief, legal advice, insurance-related counsels and support temporary residential facilities.
Over the last seven days, wildfires have engulfed multiple cities and towns in the Gyeongsang provinces — in Sancheong and Gimhae, South Gyeongsang Province, as well as Uiseong, Andong, Yeongdeok, Yeongyang and Cheongsong, North Gyeongsang Province, and the city of Ulsan.
The biggest conflagration of the three started in Uiseong — a county located in the country’s southeastern region — on March 22, claiming the lives of 23 people and forcing almost 30,000 residents to evacuate as of Thursday.
According to the Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters, the affected area spans about 33,204 hectares, surpassing the east coast wildfires in 2000 — which had previously been Korea's biggest forest fire on record — that destroyed 23,794 hectares.
The total number of evacuees rose to 37,185 on Thursday, an increase of some 10,000 people from Wednesday’s number. Among the residents, 20,485 have returned home while 16,700 remain displaced.
Though authorities have attempted all-out efforts to combat the blaze by mobilizing the national firefighting systems with some 4,600 personnel, 79 helicopters and 693 fire trucks, trying to contain the fire under the strong winds — some 72 to 90 kilometers per hour — was untenable.
On Thursday, wildfires started in Sancheong and spread westward toward Jungsan-ri and Samjang-myeon, which lie at the easternmost tip of Jirisan National Park, some of South Korea’s largest mountains.
Hadong in South Gyeongsang Province announced that it had sent out emergency alerts to evacuate all visitors from Jirisan National Park. Some 1,600 residents were also evacuated to outside the fire’s perimeter.
Another public safety alarm was sent to urge more people from Andong to evacuate on Thursday as well.
The fires have already prompted a few mandatory evacuation orders for thousands of the city’s residents since Tuesday. But the additional emergency alert was made as wildfires moved north, threatening central Andong.
A Buddhist monk presiding at Beopseongsa, a temple in the path of the Uiseong wildfire in Yeongyang, North Gyeongsang Province, has been found dead, according to local newswire Yonhap News Agency.
The chief of Hwame 1-ri village, surnamed Lee, was quoted by Yonhap as saying that the Buddhist monk had been protecting the temple alone for a long time, offering shelter to those who lived alone and sharing food with others.
“It seems he stayed at the temple until the very end to protect it,” Lee said.
Authorities announced some electrical substations went offline Wednesday night, leading to power outages in the villages. Water purification plants were heavily affected by the wildfire in Yeongdeok, North Gyeongsang Province, with one incinerated and the other stopped by a power outage.
Mobile communication services were reportedly disrupted across Yeongdeok and Uljin — another coastal county that lies adjacent to Yeongdeok — on Wednesday night. While the exact cause is still under investigation, the ministry suspected that the wildfires damaged communication lines of SK Telecom, KT Corp. and LG Uplus.
Different sections of the local expressway were under control as well.
A 158-kilometer portion of the Seosan-Yeongdeok Expressway, which connects Sangju — a western city of North Gyeongsang Province — and Yeongdeok was closed. A 91-kilometer portion of the Jungang Expressway that links Sangju and Uiseong has also been shut down since Wednesday.
Meanwhile, the acting President and Prime Minister Han Duck-soo announced Andong, Cheongsong, Yeongyang and Yeongdeok were listed as special disaster zones after considering the growing size of forest loss and the increasing number of wildfire victims.
The government previously designated Sancheong as a special disaster zone on March 22. Uiseong, Ulju and Hadong were added to this list on Monday.
The designation of a special disaster zone allows the government to provide partial financial aid for the restoration of both private and public facilities damaged by wildfires. The affected residents will also receive a range of financial support, including a reduction in public utility fees, deferred local tax payments and more.
