[KS] Naksansa tragedy & fire prevention in temples

Lauren Deutsch lwdeutsch at earthlink.net
Sun Apr 10 00:02:16 EDT 2005


Professor Pai brings up issues of looting and the lack of appropriate
security / surveillance plans / utilities. I am wondering also about reports
of Buddhist temple burnings considered the malicious activities of
fundamentalist Christian groups.

Thank you all for continuing this dialogue.

Lauren Deutsch

From: Pai hyungil <hyungpai at yahoo.co.jp>
Reply-To: hyungpai at yahoo.co.jp, Korean Studies Discussion List
<Koreanstudies at koreaweb.ws>
Date: Sat, 9 Apr 2005 10:03:07 +0900 (JST)
To: Cedar Bough Blomberg <umyang at gmail.com>, Korean Studies Discussion List
<Koreanstudies at koreaweb.ws>
Subject: Re: [KS] Naksansa tragedy & fire prevention in temples



Dear Members, 

The TV news and several newspaper articles have pointed out the dire lack of
a systematic fire prevention not to mention other technological equipment
such as video cameras or alarm systems that would have prevented such
natural disasters or man-made kind in the protection of Korean cultural
properties. As far as I am aware in my research on Korean cultural
properties, the budget, coordination efforts as well expert advice needed to
maintain such infra-structure is lacking for the majority of temples that
are  located deep in the mountainous areas .

South Korea since 1961 foundation of the Office of Cultural Properties and
the promulgation of cultural properties laws have taken pride in the
government legislation and administration of national treasures/pomul
(kukbo/pomul), Sajok (historical sites), natural monuments (chonnyon
kinnyomul) as well buried cultural properties. However, after more than
forty years of elaborate hierchichal state controlled management like many
things in the ROK, in fact the system has become so bureaucratically complex
with many ranks of remains, jurisdiction conflicts (such as seperate Chibang
munhwajae categories) and conflicting issues (preservation vs tourist
development that might damage the environment), in my opinion, many kinds of
remains have fallen in between the cracks. As far as I am aware, in my
travels around Korea except for the most prominent World Heritage sites
(Haeinsa, Sokkuram, Pulguksa, Chongmyo, Changgyong-won), much visited
national museums, and famous palaces /tourist places, most Korean sites do
not have basic anti-looting (24 security cameras/alarm system), or
anti-disaster or evacuation plans in place.Of if they do, it is mostly on
paper. 

Two nights ago, a TV reporter who made random temple visits interviewed some
monks and they all agreed that something needs to be done and mentioned the
case of Songgwangsa which had indeed had fires before and still lack the
number of sprinklers necessary for such a huge temple complex.

Hyung Il Pai 

Korea Foundation Research Fellow 04-5

Cedar Bough Blomberg <umyang at gmail.com> wrote:
Johanna,

When visiting Korean Buddhist temples it is unusual to find a large
fire break between the temple and the surrounding forest. Often there
are trees inside and outside the temple walls, with little or no break
in the foliage. The only temples I can think of that have a clearing
360 degrees around the temple have been newly constructed. There are
red fire extinguishers dotting all the temples, but in a case like
this they would not have been enough. I have never seen a sprinkler
system in a temple, either, though I wouldn't be too surprised if they
are subtly hidden in some newer buildings, at some temples.

This is a terrible tragedy for the Buddhist community and for the
Korean people, and I'm not sure how constructive it would be to start
pointing fingers at the Korean Ministry of Culture due to lack of
regulations (or perhaps enforcement) of laws related to fire
prevention. The fire fighting (they left Naksansa with the fire
"under control" to go fight another part of the fire, why couldn't
they have spent a little more time to get the fire out?) and the
equipment available (for example, only two copters that could fly in
the wind strength on Tuesday, and most forest fires are worsened by
wind conditions) were largely responsible for this loss. I , for one,
hope that this leads to faster and more effective fire-fighting
responses. It's been suggested that Korea could even rent or share
equipment with other nations that do not have their high fire season
in the spring. I hope that innovative ideas like this continue to be
suggested and adopted. I also hope other temples plan for evacuation
of portable treasures (like the Buddha image at Naksansa which was
stored away safely when the fire first looked threatening).

Ultimately, I think that taking trees out of/away from Korean Buddhist
temples would change the temples into something else. There is risk
inherent in having the trees there, but not having them there, in my
opinion, would be worse.




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