Wind-driven wildfires that were among South Korea’s worst ever are ravaging southern regions, killing 18 people, destroying more than 200 structures and forcing 27,000 people to evacuate, officials said on Wednesday.
Han Duck-soo, South Korea’s prime minister and acting president, said five days of fires had caused “unprecedented damage” and asked agencies tackling the disaster to “assume the worst-case scenario and respond accordingly”, according to Yonhap news agency.
A helicopter crashed during efforts to contain wildfires in the south-eastern town of Uiseong, killing the pilot and forcing the Korea Forest Service to suspend helicopter operations across the country.
Officials in Andong city and other south-eastern cities and towns ordered residents to evacuate on Tuesday as firefighters struggled to contain multiple blazes fuelled by dry winds, which burned more than 17,400 hectares (43,000 acres) of land and destroyed hundreds of structures, including a 1,300-year-old Buddhist temple.
More than 5,500 people were forced to evacuate from their homes in Andong, the neighbouring counties of Uiseong and Sancheong, and the city of Ulsan, where the fires were the largest, according to South Korea’s ministry of the interior and safety.
South Korean officials earlier on Tuesday had said firefighters had extinguished most of the flames from the largest wildfires in those areas, but the ongoing dry and windy weather caused setbacks and allowed the blazes to spread again.
The Uiseong fire, only 68% contained and exacerbated by strong winds, shows “unimaginable” scale and speed, said Lee Byung-doo, a forest disaster expert at the National Institute of Forest Science.
Climate change is projected to make wildfires more frequent, Lee said. “We have to admit large-scale wildfires are going to increase and prepare more resources and manpower,” he told a local television station.
Nearly 9,000 firefighters, along with more than 130 helicopters and hundreds of vehicles, were deployed to battle the fires, but efforts were partially suspended overnight as the winds strengthened.
Officials in Andong and Uiseong county ordered residents in several villages and those near Andong University to evacuate to safe locations or temporary shelters – including schools and indoor gyms – as a fire that started in Uiseong continued to spread.
The blaze in Uiseong destroyed Gounsa, a Buddhist temple built in the seventh century, according to officials from the Korea Heritage Service. There were no immediate reports of injuries, and some of the temple’s national treasures, including a stone Buddha statue, were evacuated before the fire reached the wooden buildings.
The fire also spread to the nearby coastal town of Yeongdeok, where officials shut down roads and ordered residents of at least four villages to evacuate. The justice ministry did not immediately confirm local reports that it had begun relocating 2,600 inmates from a prison in Cheongsong county, also near Uiseong.
Human-caused climate breakdown is responsible for a higher likelihood of fire and bigger burned areas in southern Europe, northern Eurasia, the US and Australia, with some scientific evidence of increases in southern China.
Climate breakdown has increased the wildfire season by about two weeks on average across the globe.
With Reuters and Associated Press
