More than a dozen fires broke out over the weekend, scorching wide swathes of the southeast, forcing around 27,000 people to urgently evacuate, with the fire cutting off roads and downing communications lines as residents fled in panic.
“26 people have died, eight are seriously injured and 22 have been lightly injured,“ he said.
The extent of damage makes it South Korea’s largest ever wildfire, after the inferno in April 2000 that scorched 23,913 hectares across the east coast.
Most of those killed were local residents, but at least three firefighters were killed, and a pilot in a firefighting helicopter died when his aircraft crashed in a mountain area, officials said.
The fire-hit region had been experiencing unusually dry weather with below-average precipitation, authorities said, with the South experiencing more than double the number of fires this year than last.
Other phenomena, such as forest fires, droughts, snowstorms and tropical storms can result from a combination of complex factors.
“This wildfire has once again exposed the harsh reality of a climate crisis unlike anything we’ve experienced before,“ disaster chief Lee said.
Expert Yeh Sang-Wook, professor of climatology at Seoul’s Hanyang University, told AFP that the lack of rainfall had dried out the land “creating favourable conditions for wildfires.”
“We can’t say that it’s only due to climate change, but climate change is directly (and) indirectly affecting the changes we are experiencing now. This is a sheer fact.”
“It is worrying that many of the victims are senior citizens, including patients at nursing hospitals,“ Acting President Han Duck-soo said, as he ordered the country’s interior minister to relocate to the affected area to oversee relief efforts.
Multiple historic sites, including two listed with UNESCO, were threatened by the fires, with South Korean heritage officials working with firefighters.
“We are spraying three tonnes of water every day as a fire prevention measure across the premises, including the buildings,“ Lee Seung-myung, head of fire safety team at Andong fire department told AFP.
“If a fire breaks out here, it is likely to be triggered by flames spreading from the pine trees, so we are now cutting them down near the site to prevent such a scenario,“ Lee added.
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