Dozens dead and injured as bushfires ravage South Korea

Seoul: At least 18 people have died, including a helicopter pilot, and another 19 people have been injured as bushfires ravage South Korea’s southern regions amid dry weather and strong winds, destroying more than 200 structures and forcing 27,000 people to evacuate, government officials said on Wednesday.

Residents in Andong and other south-eastern cities and towns were ordered to leave on Tuesday as firefighters struggled to contain several blazes, which burnt more than 17,000 hectares of land and a 1300-year-old Buddhist temple. Observers say these are the third-biggest fires in the country in terms of land burnt. Houses, factories and vehicles were among the structures destroyed.

In a televised address, acting President Han Duck-soo said the fires that began on Friday were causing worse damage than many other past fires.

“Damages are snowballing,” Han said. “There are concerns that we’ll have wildfire damages that we’ve never experienced, so we have to concentrate all our capabilities to put out the wildfires in the rest of this week.”

One of about 130 helicopters helping to fight the fires crashed on Wednesday, killing the pilot. More than 4000 firefighters, soliders and other personnel have been deployed to bring the fires under ccontrol

Han said crews were struggling to extinguish the fires because strong winds had swept the areas overnight. He said about 5-10 millimetres of rain was expected on Thursday.

Officials in several south-eastern cities and towns had ordered residents to evacuate on Tuesday as firefighters struggled to contain multiple blazes. The largest fires were in Andong, the neighbouring counties of Uiseong and Sancheong, and the city of Ulsan, according to the Interior Ministry.

Earlier on Tuesday, officials had said firefighters had extinguished most of the flames from the largest fires in those areas, but wind and dry conditions allowed the blazes to spread again.