South Korea declares emergency as wildfires kill 4, displace hundreds

By Soo-Hyang Choi

 

South Korea has declared a state of disaster after multiple forest fires hit the country’s south, killing at least four and displacing hundreds of residents from their homes.

 

Firefighters were scrambling to put out the fires that started in the southern county of Sancheong on Friday, as well as others in at least three different regions in southern South Korea. The Korea Forest Service said the Sancheong fire, which killed four and injured six others, had been 25 per cent contained as of Saturday night.   

 

Authorities have mobilised dozens of vehicles and hundreds of officials to extinguish the fire that has burned about 847 hectares of land and prompted some 260 residents of Sancheong to evacuate, the forest agency said.

 

Some 620 residents in the southeastern city of Ulsan and the nearby Gyeongsang province have taken shelter from forest fires that started Saturday, the Ministry of the Interior and Safety said. 

 

South Korea declared a state of disaster in the southern regions to facilitate mobilisation of resources to contain the fires, and designated Sancheong as a special disaster zone, the ministry said. 

 

The fires are ravaging the country at a time when South Korea is undergoing some of its greatest political turbulence in decades, triggered by President Yoon Suk Yeol’s short-lived martial law declaration in December. Finance Minister Choi Sang-mok is currently leading the country as the acting president.