At least, 24 people are dead in what can be called South Korea’s worst-ever wildfires, over 200 structures destroyed, and 27,000 people displaced.
The ‘unprecedented’ blazes have also seen ancient treasures – including a 1,300- year-old Buddhist temple – reduced to smoldering rubble as they continue to tear through the country this morning.
The rising death toll includes a pilot of a helicopter fighting the wildfires who was killed in a crash and four victims who burned to death when their car overturned as they tried to escape, Yonhap news agency reported.
Flames engulfed the Gounsa temple, in the southeastern town of Uiseong, yesterday and about 20 of the temple’s 30 buildings were damaged beyond repair.
Two of its most precious structures were burned to the ground while monks battled to save the remaining relics.
‘I went there this morning and found they’ve been reduced to heaps of ashes,’ said Doryun, a senior monk who lived at the temple when he was younger.
‘I feel really empty. Life is transient.’
Doryun said that monks managed to move the temple’s third ‘treasure,’ a stone Buddha statue reportedly built in the 8th century, to a safe place.
So far more than 43,000 acres have been ravaged by the brutal blazes and the damage is said to be ‘snowballing’.
Acting president Han Duck-soo said the crisis remains critical and is ‘rewriting the record books for the worst wildfires in our nation’s history’.
The fires started in Sancheong county on Friday afternoon and later spread to Uiseong county, authorities said.
Fuelled by strong and dry winds, they are now spreading to the neighbouring counties of Andong, Cheongsong, Yeongyang and Yeongdeok.
