Last Sunday we just came back from Shanghai (pictures coming soon!) and found South Korea with its number 1 national treasure burned down.
The fire was caused by an arsonist, who didn’t have anything better to do than burning away his own country’s history. Quite a loss for a city which doesn’t stand out for its tourist attractions…
The Namdaemun or Sungnyemun (South Great Gate) was built in 1398 during the Joseon Dynasty, then partially destroyed by the Korean War and reconstructed in 1962. It is made of stone on its lower part, but it’s all wood on its upper part, which explains why it took 30 fire trucks and 90 firefighters (accortding to this source, according to this other source there were more than 360 firefighters) more than five hours to put out the fire…
Namdaemun at night before the fire (picture by tylerdurden1).
Hi! I read it in the paper. Its sad. Do you know if the person was a Korean or foreginer? it is ashame either way, but in Japan we have things lile that too. Japanese people burning Japanese history.. like temples or statues… cant believe it.
Supposedly, the arsonist is a Korean guy, more than 70 years old, and with a history of trying to set on fire other historical monuments, very sad…