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Scenes of apocalyptic chaos emerge as devastating wildfires race through North Gyeongsang

Published: 26 Mar. 2025, 13:33 Updated: 26 Mar. 2025, 17:29

LIM JEONG-WON
[email protected]

A police officer checks a burned-out passenger car on the road leading to Maejeong-ri Village in Yeongdeok County, North Gyeongsang, on March 26. Police said that three nursing home residents who were evacuated in a passenger car as the wildfire spread died in the fire. [NEWS1]

As wildfires fueled by winds blowing at 20 meters per second swept through the northern regions of North Gyeongsang on Tuesday, National Route 7 was reduced to chaos.

After hours of evacuation orders, power outages and communication failures, the vital transportation artery was in complete disarray as evacuees continued to pack the road. On Tuesday evening, the route became completely blocked within minutes by evacuees heading south.

“A fireball rained down between the tightly packed vehicles and set a car on fire," a resident of the area told Yonhap News. "The passengers barely managed to escape from the burning car, and the scene was a mess.”

“The fire was moving as fast as the cars," said another resident. "When the traffic came to a halt, we mistakenly thought the police who came to control things had blocked the road."

Multiple deaths have been reported during the chaotic evacuations. Six people died in Yeongyang, including a family, and two people died in Andong, including a woman in her 70s who suffocated to death while leaving her home.

While the roads were in chaos, fires broke out in Sangwon-ri and Dogok-ri villages at the easternmost tip of Yeongdeok County. In response, evacuees poured out of nearby ports.

More than a hundred residents who had rushed to the breakwaters of Seokri Port, Chuksan Port and Gyeongjeong 3-ri Port were stranded in thick fog and smoke and were eventually rescued by the Uljin Coast Guard.

At around 8 p.m. Tuesday, a patrol car belonging to Yeongdeok Police Precinct was dispatched to rescue residents isolated in Jipum-myeon and to control traffic in the area, but it was engulfed in flames and completely gutted.

Three police officers and one resident riding in the patrol car barely escaped from the burning vehicle.

However, an hour later, a vehicle carrying nursing home residents caught fire and exploded in Yeongdeok's Maejeong-ri.

Two staff members and four residents were in the vehicle. Three were killed.

The chaos spread everywhere the wildfires touched.

“Even though the flames were spreading, there was no guidance on which directions were safe or dangerous," a 60-year-old man who lives near Juwangsan National Park in Cheongsong told Yonhap News. "They just told us to evacuate quickly, so I came outside, but I was disappointed that there were no clear, active instructions.”

On Tuesday, a woman in her 60s in Cheongsong died in the wildfire as she was fleeing by car.

In the Samui Valley, Seokbo-myeon, Yeongyang County, dozens of vehicles were abandoned after driving into ditches or burning after crashing into guardrails during evacuation.

BY LIM JEONG-WON [[email protected]]