Residents flee as fire devastates Seoul shanty town

A monolithic blaze has swept done a shanty municipality connected the outskirts of the South Korean capital, Seoul, destroying homes and sending residents fleeing.

Nearly 300 firefighters fought the occurrence connected Friday arsenic it threatened Guryong, an impoverished country of the affluent Gangnam territory successful confederate Seoul. No injuries oregon deaths person been reported frankincense far.

Firefighters managed to incorporate the blaze astir six hours aft it started, according to officials.

Local occurrence serviceman Jeong Gwang-hun told reporters during a televised briefing that exigency teams were conducting thorough searches of each damaged buildings for imaginable victims.

More than 1,200 personnel, including firefighters and constabulary officers, responded to the crisis, Jeong said, adding that the origin of the occurrence remained nether investigation.

The hillside assemblage has suffered recurrent fires implicit the years, a hazard experts nexus to its crowded dwellings constructed with highly combustible materials.

Guryong stands successful stark opposition to neighbouring areas of Seoul, which diagnostic towering luxury apartments and high-end buying centres, highlighting South Korea’s utmost wealthiness inequality.

The colony formed successful the 1980s arsenic a haven for those displaced during sweeping municipality improvement programmes.

During this time, hundreds of thousands of Seoul residents were forced from slums and mediocre neighbourhoods, a process the military-backed authorities considered indispensable to heighten the city’s quality earlier visitors arrived for the 1988 Olympic Games.