 Grief-sticken citizens placed white chrysanthenmums in front of Sungnyemun (Namdaemun) in central Seoul, Monday, mourning its destruction in the same manner as they would express their condeolences for the deceased. The iconic wooden building dating back 610 years and designated as South Korea's foremost national treasure collapsed early Monday following a fierce fire./ Korea Times Photo by Choi Hung-soo |
By Kim Tae-jong
Staff Reporter
Police said Monday they are investigating whether arson resulted in the fire at Namdaemun, the oldest wooden structure in central Seoul, although they are not ruling out a short circuit or other accidental causes.
Fire engulfed the capital's 610-year-old iconic gate late Sunday and gutted the wooden section despite a five-hour battle to put out the blaze. A police forensic team began sifting through the debris at the site, which was surrounded by scaffolding and a screen, Monday.
``I think a more accurate report can be only made after a close joint investigation,'' Kim Young-soo, chief of Namdaemun Police Station, said in a press conference. ``We are now investigating the possibility of arson, a short circuit or accidental origins.''
Initially, arson appeared to be the cause of the fire after a taxi driver reported that he saw a man in his 50s go up the stairs to the gate shortly before the blaze started.
But Kim said the taxi driver's report differed from those of two other eyewitnesses in crucial factors, resulting in the police being unable to conclude that the fire was set by the man the taxi driver described.
``Three witnesses have made conflicting statements,'' Kim said.
Separately, a firefighter said that a member of his squad found two cigarette lighters on the second floor of the gate, also raising the possibility of arson.
``I've heard that there were two cigarette lighters on the central stairway on the second floor,'' Oh Yong-kyu, a firefighter told reporters. ``The fire seems to have broken out at the point where the lighters were left.''
But police said the lighters were found on the first floor.
Police have unable to secure concrete evidence from closed circuit televisions (CCTVs) installed around the gate, and have collected recordings from other surveillance cameras on nearby buildings.
Just three minutes before the fire, private security company KT Telecom captured an intruder on its CCTV. Six minutes after the alarm bell rang, KT guards arrived on the scene, three minutes before firefighters began to battle the blaze.
The collapse of the `pride of the nation' has hurt all Koreans, according to a Seoul resident on the scene, who said it was terrible this tragic collapse happened on the first weekday of the Lunar New Year, and ahead of the inauguration of the Lee Myung-bak administration.
Mournful residents snapped photos of the charred ruin, lamenting over the collapse of one of Seoul's major tourist attractions.
The blaze comes less than three years after fire destroyed one of the country's oldest Buddhist temples, Naksan Temple, along with its bronze bell.
The accident will deal a severe blow to the Cultural Heritage Administration (CHA) and Seoul Metropolitan Fire and Disaster Management Department (SMFDMD) due to reported ineffective initial measures.
About 30 fire trucks along with 90 firefighters were mobilized to the scene but could not immediately bring the fire under control for fear of damaging the national treasure.
``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.
But the cultural administration and disaster management department denied allegations that there was the lack of cooperation between the two core bodies.
Officially called Sungnyemun, the gate is one of the four gates of the walls that surrounded the capital during the Joseon Kingdom (1392-1910). It has served as an iconic landmark, and was designated as National Treasure No.1 in 1962.
The gate survived a series of Korea's tribulations from the Japanese invasions in the 16th century to the 1950-53 Korean War. Even in modern times when repair efforts on artifacts became commonplace, the historic gate kept most of its original form after it underwent post-war renovation in 1962.
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