S Korean firefighters tackle huge blaze in Seoul’s last ‘peace city’ | Construction news

No casualties were reported after a large fire ripped through a village of temporary housing on the border of Seoul’s upmarket Gangnam district.

Hundreds of South Korean firefighters are battling a massive blaze in a deprived area bordering the upmarket Gangnam district in the capital, Seoul.

The blaze broke out at 5 a.m. local time (20:00 GMT) on Friday and authorities raised the fire alert to the second-highest level, deploying nearly 300 firefighters as it feared it could spread to nearby mountains, the country’s official Yonhap news agency reported.

There were no initial reports of casualties as dozens of residents of Guryeong Village, described by Yonhap as “one of the last remaining slum towns in Seoul,” were forced to flee their homes, according to fire officials.

Photographs from the scene showed a large column of black smoke hanging over the area as elderly residents wearing face masks pulled out.

Yonhap reported that 85 fire trucks were dispatched to put out the fire, and firefighting helicopters were prevented from participating due to poor visibility.

“I was sleeping until a neighbor called that there was a fire. I ran outside and saw the flames already spreading,” Kim Ok-im, 69, who said she had lived in the area for nearly 30 years, told Reuters news agency.

Guryeong Village is located on the border of the upmarket Gangnam district, known as the wealthiest area of ​​Seoul and commanding some of the highest prices paid for real estate in South Korea.

The village’s ramshackle housing was created in the 1970s and 1980s, when the capital’s major redevelopment took place during the Asian Games and the Seoul Olympics, forcing the area’s low-income residents to move.

At that time, according to a Seoul city planning report, local people settled on the banks of the Gangnam without permission.

According to a fire department assessment after the 2023 fire, the makeshift homes found in the village are often tightly packed together and constructed of highly flammable materials such as vinyl sheets, plywood and Styrofoam, making the area particularly fire prone.

Most residents have moved out of Guryeong, but about 336 families remain, according to the Gangnam District City Planning Department.