Fire in Insadong

A bad fire broke out in Insadong last night at around 8:30pm. It was in a little alley behind Jongno tower packed with restaurants. And one of the restaurants that got burnt down to the ground was one we often go to called Yukmi 육미 . The restaurant was very popular and always busy with office workers after a long day’s work. There’s not much info available yet but according to various news sites nobody died but at least 7 people were injured and taken to hospital. 50 fire engines and 180 firefighters worked for two hours to put out the fire but the roads are narrow, the area is very built up, and the buildings are made of wood. So not easy to put out the fire. And very scary to be there when the fire started I should imagine. The fire burned through 19 restaurants in 8 buildings. Pictures in the newspaper show that the area has been totally obliterated in the fire. What a shame.

I thought I had lots of photos of this area and the restaurant because we often went there but I couldn’t find any pictures. It just shows how we take things for granted and now I regret not taking any pictures. 🙁 But I found some pictures here of how it looked before. The cause of the fired isn’t yet known but there is speculation that it was a gas explosion.

picture Korean Times

picture CNTV

picture Daum