Citizens Rally to Save Seomun Market

The websites of Seomun Market in Daegu City and other civic groups are being flooded with postings encouraging shopkeepers and asking how they can help save the market.

Housewife Kim Young-ran, 40, said, “With the Daegu economy extremely stagnated, it is very distressing that Seomun Market, where ordinary people shop, was destroyed by a large fire. I plan to buy all the necessary products to prepare for the Lunar New Year at Seomun market.”

Shin Joo-yong, 35, argued, “In order to motivate shopkeepers to stay, Seomun Market’s second district, the one that burned down, should be declared as a special disaster area.”

Housewife Heo Jin-hee, 46, commented, “It hurts that Daegu’s symbolic traditional market has turned to ashes. It would be nice if people would go shop there.”

Seomun Market Fire Restoration Headquarters and the Daegu Junggu office received many phone calls asking for ways to help the market’s shopkeepers.

The city of Daegu has decided to start a campaign to collect donations from its citizens to help the victims of the fire, and plans to ask the Ministry of Government Administration and Home Affairs to approve the donation campaign sometime soon.

According to the law on collecting donations, all donations collected over 300 million won have to pass through the Donation Examination Committee and then receive the approval of the minister of administration and home affairs.

On January 3, shopkeepers handed out pamphlets asking for support for their bid to use Seomun Market’s parking building as a site for temporary shops to their neighboring shopkeepers.

The head of Shopkeepers Management Measures, 58-year-old Jung Cheong-ho, said, “Where will we be doing our business away from Seomun Market where we have worked for decades? Let us have even one-pyeong, so we can set up temporary shops and at least put up signs.”

The Seomun Market Association will hold a vote on the issue among its various districts and decide whether or not to use the parking building as a temporary market.

Controversy Rages Over Fire Response, Damage Estimates—

Shopkeepers argue that even though they reported the fire right after it started, 95 percent, or 1,190 shops out of total 1,267, burned down because firefighters failed to put out the fire in its initial stages.

They said it is hard to believe that it took 20 hours--the blaze started at 9:57 p.m. December 29 and was put out at 5:57 p.m. the next day--to completely extinguish the fire.

The Daegu Metropolitan Fire Department explained that arriving at the scene of the fire in three minutes made it difficult for its response to be qualified as a “delayed action,” and that the delay in completely extinguishing the fire was due to the characteristics of Seomun Market.

The flames first originated from linen shops, where two-to-four pyeong shops abound and are all tightly located next to each other. In addition, the products inside the shops were linen, which is very flammable.

Furthermore, the fire department announced that the market building, constructed in 1975, showed signs of collapsing, so it had to withdraw all its firefighters around 4:00 a.m. on December 30.

Damage estimates from the fire also differ greatly. The Daegu Fire Department put the damage figure at around 17.7 billion won: 3.5 billion for the building and 14.2 billion for the burned merchandise.

According to Daegu Junggu Disaster Relief Headquarters, the damages that have been filed so far amount to 62.4 billion won for 1,190 shops. Shopkeepers, on the other hand, estimate their losses to be upwards of 100 billion won.

At the time of the fire, the market’s sprinklers did not actually work, but on November 4 and 5, a fire facility management company certified that the sprinklers and fire alarms were functional, raising the possibility of future liability disputes.

On January 3, the city of Daegu recommended the Ministry of Government Administration and Home Affairs declare Seomun Market’s second district as a special disaster area and to provide a 25 billion won special support grant.

The Bank of Korea’s Daegu North Gyeongsang Province Branch decided to exchange partially or entirely burned money.

Together with the Pyeongyang Market and Kangkyung Market, Seomun Market was one the three largest markets in the Joseon era. Currently, it is the biggest traditional market in the Yeongnam region with over 4,000 shops. There are five districts in the market. The first, second, fourth, fifth and Dongsan and Ajin Mall. The second district, razed by flames, was 20,000 square meters and housed 1,267 shops mainly selling cloth fabrics and linen.