South Korea is facing “snowballing damage” from some of its worst ever wildfires that have killed at least 23 people and forced 27,000 to evacuate.
The blazes have destroyed a 1,300-year-old Buddhist temple, houses, factories and vehicles, and burned more than 43,000 acres.
Among the dead was the pilot of a helicopter fighting the wildfires who was killed in a crash, Yonhap news agency reported.
Image: Pic: Yonhap/Reuters 
Image: Smoke and flames rise from a wildfire in Andong. Pic: Yonhap/Reuters
In a televised address, South Korea’s acting president Han Duck-soo said the wildfires that began last Friday were causing worse damage than many other past wildfires.
“Damages are snowballing,” Mr Han said. “There are concerns that we’ll have wildfire damages that we’ve never experienced, so we have to concentrate all our capabilities to put out the wildfires in the rest of this week.”
He added: “We are deploying all available personnel and equipment in response to the worst wildfires ever but the situation is not good.”
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Hopes pinned on rain as emergency services struggle
As so often with wildfires, it is weather conditions that have brought us to this point and that are likely to dictate the coming days.
More than two dozen fires have been blazing since the weekend, but it was high winds on Tuesday evening and overnight into Wednesday that transformed this from a local to a national emergency.
In that time, the percentage of fires that were contained by the emergency services dropped significantly.
Hopes are now pinned on rain that is forecast for Thursday. But with less than an inch expected, the situation could remain dire.
The land in this rural part of Korea will still be exceedingly dry. March is the end of the dry season, and this year has seen much lower levels of precipitation than in previous years.
There are mounting concerns about rural communities made up of largely elderly people and winds blowing the flames closer to more major urban hubs such as the city of Andong.
The fear is that a spattering of rain will not be enough.
Around 4,650 firefighters, soldiers and other personnel, along with approximately 130 helicopters, were struggling to extinguish the fires as strong winds swept through the affected areas overnight.
The fire were threatening several UNESCO World Heritage sites – Hahoe Village and the Byeongsan Confucian
Academy – in Andong city on Wednesday, a city official said.
The flames had already burnt down Goun Temple, an ancient temple built in 681, Yonhap news agency reported.
Image: Pic: Yonhap/Reuters
Officials in several southeastern cities and towns ordered residents to evacuate on Tuesday as firefighters struggled to contain multiple blazes fuelled by dry winds.
Among those who have died were four firefighters and government workers who were killed on Saturday after being trapped by fast-moving flames driven by strong winds, according to officials.
Government officials suspect human error was the cause of several of the fires, possibly due to the use of fire while clearing overgrown grass in family tombs or sparks from welding work.
