The government declared a state of emergency in four regions, citing “the extensive damage caused by simultaneous wildfires” and thousands of people have been ordered to evacuate.
Late Tuesday, authorities in Andong issued an emergency alert to residents of the historic Hahoe Folk Village – a UNESCO-listed world heritage site popular with tourists – as the blaze drew closer.
“The Uiseong Angye wildfire is moving in the direction,” of the area, the alert said. “Residents are requested to evacuate immediately.”
In Uiseong, the sky was full of smoke and haze, AFP reporters saw, with the Korea Forest Service saying the containment rate for the fire in that area had decreased from 60 to 55 percent Tuesday.
Early in the morning, workers at the Gounsa Temple, which was more than 1,000-years-old, were attempting to move valuable artefacts and cover up Buddhist statues to protect them from possible damage.
“We used fire retardant blankets,” Joo Jung-wan, Gyeongbuk Seobu Cultural Heritage Care Center worker told AFP, saying that a giant gilded Buddha statue was too large to move so had been carefully covered.
Hours later, an official at the Korea Heritage Service told AFP that the temple had been burned down.
“It is very heartbreaking and painful to see the precious temples that are over a thousand years old being lost,” monk Deung-woon told AFP.
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