• Feb
  • 10

Namdaemun's burning

South Korea’s National Treasure No. 1, Namdaemun (South Gate), is burning as I write this. The roof has begun to collapse, and flames are pouring out from the structure, despite the massive quantities of water being sprayed on it.

English news services in Korea have already published stories online for the morning, but their news is already out-dated. Foreign news services haven’t picked up the story yet.

The gate has already begun to collapse and looks as if it may come down altogether.

Arson is suspected, eye-witnesses having seen a man entering and leaving a restricted area shortly before the fire began.

Reports:

JoonAng Daily | The Korean Times | Yonhap

I was at Namdaemun just yesterday. Words can’t begin to explain how sad this is … More of the roof just collapsed …

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Madison
11 February 08 / permalink / feed

Oh no! What a great cultural and historical loss for your country. It is so tragic! :-(

Melinda
16 February 08 / permalink / feed

I cannot begin to say how saddened that I am over the loss of such a historical masterpiece. It makes me so sad to see it burned.

What makes it worse, was that someone actually did this to it on purpose. What were his reasons? Did he ever say? Why would anyone do something like this to such a piece of treasure?

~ Melinda ~

Matthew
16 February 08 / permalink / feed

This is the reason:

“… the suspect had complained about a land dispute with a development company, saying that he did not get enough compensation from the developer for about 100 square meters (1,076 square feet) in Gyeonggi province near Seoul.”

The full article from which that’s extracted is in my follow-up post, here.

Apparently, he’d tried setting fire to one of the palaces a few years ago as well. The man it truly a maniac.

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