Hundreds evacuated as blaze erupts in slum next to Seoul’s posh Gangnam
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Firefighters at the scene of a fire at Guryong village, the last slum in the glitzy Gangnam district, Seoul, on Jan 20.
PHOTO: REUTERS
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SEOUL - Fire swept through part of a shanty town in the South Korean capital Seoul on Friday, destroying 60 homes – many constructed from cardboard and wood – and forcing the evacuation of around 500 people.
Emergency services took five hours to put out the blaze.
The fire began before daybreak in Guryong Village, a slum that lies just across a highway from Seoul’s affluent Gangnam district. Officials had not reported any casualties.
Home to around 1,000 people, Guryong is one of the last remaining shanty towns in Seoul and has become a symbol of inequality in Asia’s fourth-largest economy.
Ten helicopters and hundreds of firefighters, police and troops joined the effort to put out the blaze.
According to officials, the fire razed almost one in 10 of the 600-plus homes in Guryong.
“I saw a flash from the kitchen and opened the door, and flames were shooting from the houses next door,” said Ms Shin, a 72-year-old woman whose home was completely burned in the inferno.
“So I knocked on every door nearby and shouted ‘fire!’, and then called 119,” she said, giving only her surname.
Mr Kim Doo-chun, 60, said his family was unaffected by the fire, but he told Reuters that the village was constantly at risk of disaster, partly due to its cardboard homes and narrow alleys.
“If a fire breaks out in this neighbourhood, the entire village could be in danger if we don’t respond quickly. So we’ve been responding together for decades,” said Mr Kim, who has lived in the area for 30 years.
The slum has long been prone to fires and flooding, and safety and health issues abound.
Following a huge fire in late 2014, the government unveiled plans for redevelopment and relocation. But those efforts have made little progress amid a decades-long tug of war between landowners, residents and the authorities.
The civic authorities for Seoul and Gangnam district, and state-run developers have been at odds over how to compensate private landowners in Guryong.
They have also yet to agree whether residents, most of whom are squatters, are entitled to government support for relocation and housing.
Told about the fire while in Switzerland for the World Economic Forum, President Yoon Suk-yeol ordered all-out efforts to prevent a bigger disaster, his spokesman Kim Eun-hye said.
Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon visited the still-smouldering village and asked officials to prepare to relocate affected families. REUTERS
