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AP
SOUTH KOREA’S MOST PRECIOUS PROPERTY, A 610-YR.-OLD WOODEN RELIC, was lost to fire on Sunday night. It was an intricately carved structure that was atop the Namdaemun Gate that had originally been part of a wall that encircled Seoul.
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AFP
After having been closed to the public since 1907, the gate was re-opened to visitors in 2006.
About 80 firefighters fought to bring the blaze under control and it was not known whether there are any casualties, they said, adding that the cause of the fire has yet to be determined. The FD had difficulty in the initial attack because of the construction. “We had difficulty in dismantling tiles and they were all inclined, so we couldn’t put out the fire in its initial stages,” SMFDMD head Jung Jung-gi told reporters Monday in a briefing. Different from other buildings, the complicated and delicate structure of the gate made the work much harder, Jung said.
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Police are investigating both possibilites, arson or accidental, as the cause. There are CCT cameras in the gate area as well as surveillance cameras on nearby buildings.
Namdaemun, literally ‘the great southern gate,’ was the southern gate of the original walls surrounding Seoul during the Joseon Dynasty. The construction of this gate began in 1395 and was finished in 1398.
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Xinhua
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Firefighters Save Artifact
Early into the fire operation, some firefighters made a heroic “save” of one the artifacts connected with the structure.
The Korea Times reports:
A wooden tablet from Sungnyemun ? more commonly known as Namdaemun or South Gate ? written in Chinese characters narrowly escaped damage from the fire that destroyed all other wooden parts of the structure.
Firefighters rushed to the scene to remove the tablet from the burning structure around 11 p.m. Sunday, two hours after the fire broke out.
The tablet’s writing remains undamaged although it sustained minor scratches on its edges while firefighters removed it from the structure with a saw.
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Korea Times image
The full story is HERE.
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