SEOUL: A fire engulfed a section of a shanty town in the South Korean capital Seoul on Friday, destroying 60 homes, many of them made of cardboard and wood, and up to 500 people. was forced to relocate.
It took five hours for emergency services to put out the blaze, which broke out before dawn in Goryong Village, a slum just across a highway from Seoul’s affluent Gangnam district. Officials said that no casualty has been reported yet.
Home to about 1,000 people, Goryong is one of the capital’s last remaining slums and has become a symbol of inequality in Asia’s fourth-largest economy.
Ten helicopters and hundreds of firefighters, police and soldiers took part in efforts to put out the blaze, which has destroyed nearly one in ten of the more than 600 homes in Goryong, according to officials.
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Hundreds of people had to be evacuated after a #fire broke out in a #slum in #Seoul early January 20. pic.twitter.com/LmRewVAvp8
“I saw a flash from the kitchen and opened the door, and flames were coming out of the houses next door,” said Shin, a 72-year-old woman whose house was completely gutted in the fire.
“So I knocked on every door around and shouted ‘Fire!’ And then called 119,” he said, giving only his name.
Kim Do-chun, 60, said his family was not affected by the fire but told JEE News the village was at risk of destruction, partly because of the cardboard houses and narrow streets.
“If there’s a fire in this neighborhood, if we don’t respond quickly, the whole village could be in danger. So we’ve been responding together for decades,” said Kim, who has been in the area for 30 years. Lived from
The slum has long been prone to fires and floods, and safety and health problems abound.
The government unveiled reconstruction and relocation plans after a massive fire in late 2014, but these efforts have seen little progress amid decades of conflict between landowners, residents and authorities. .
City officials in Seoul and Gangnam district, and government developers are at odds over how to compensate private landowners in Goryong and have yet to agree on whether residents, many of whom are squatters, should be relocated and housed. are entitled to government assistance for
Informed of the fire during the World Economic Forum in Switzerland, President Yoon Seok-yul ordered all efforts to prevent a major disaster, his spokesman Kim Yoon-hye said.
Seoul Mayor Oh Si-hoon visited the stinking village and asked officials to prepare to relocate affected families.
