SEOUL, Oct 27 (Reuters) – A fire that broke out on Tuesday in Guryong village, a shantytown in Seoul’s upmarket Gangnam district, affecting 77 households and 107 people, has been largely extinguished, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency said.
The main fire was brought under control after 7-1/2 hours, with one woman suffering a minor leg injury, it added.
Yonhap said people had evacuated to an emergency shelter.
The fire agency deployed 232 personnel and 70 vehicles to fight the blaze, which began at about 3:50 p.m. local time (0650 GMT) in a temporary structure, Yonhap said. Six helicopters were sent to stop it spreading to a nearby mountain.
Guryong, often described as Seoul’s largest remaining shantytown, emerged in the 1970s and 1980s when families displaced by public works projects settled on the edge of Gangnam without permits. Its densely packed homes are built with flammable materials such as vinyl sheets and plywood.
A major fire in the village in January forced hundreds of residents to evacuate.
(Reporting by Joyce Lee; Additional Reporting by Hyunsu Yim; Editing by Ed Davies and Raju Gopalakrishnan)
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