SANCHEONG COUNTY, South Korea (Reuters) – Deadly wildfires spread further across South Korea on Monday as authorities designated three more counties ‘special disaster zones’.
At least four people have been killed and hundreds forced to flee their homes since blazes broke out in several areas on Saturday, stoked by strong winds and dry weather.
Kim Byung-wook, a 64-year-old farmer in Sancheong County in the southern part of the country, said the house he had lived in for more than 30 years had been destroyed.
“Things that remind me of my youth disappeared without a trace – photos of my children when they were young,” he told Reuters.
“The biggest priority is to quickly come up with measures to support and allow disaster recovery as soon as possible,” he said.
Sancheong was already a special disaster zone – a designation that triggers extra funding and other measures. Acting President Han Duck-soo added another county in South Gyeongsang Province and two others in Ulsan and North Gyeongsang Province to the list.
Han, who returned to the post following a ruling by the Constitutional Court earlier in the day, visited Uiseong County, one of the affected areas, and met residents who had taken shelter, his office said in a statement.
(Reporting by Minwoo Park and Daewoung Kim; Additional Reporting by Hyunsu Yim; Editing by Andrew Heavens)
