Race to battle blazes in South Korea and Japan

South Korean authorities said yesterday they would deploy dozens of helicopters and thousands of firefighters and soldiers as they struggle to control multiple wildfires in the southeast, which have been burning for days.

Four people have been killed so far, with officials warning that high winds and rising temperatures were hindering efforts to put out the blazes.

In Uiseong, nearly 7,000 hectares of land has been affected and around 600 people evacuated, said authorities.

"A total of 57 wildfire fighting helicopters are to be deployed to extinguish the fire," authorities said, adding that more than 2,600 fire fighting personnel - including soldiers - would be mobilized.

The fire had been partly contained but was still burning as of yesterday afternoon.

The forest agency has issued "severe" fire warnings, its highest level, in multiple locations, including North and South Gyeongsang provinces, Busan and Daejeon.

A major wildfire claimed four lives over the weekend in Sancheong county, in South Gyeongsang province, about 250 kilometers southeast of Seoul.

That fire was also partly contained by yesterday - but still burning.

The government declared a state of emergency in the affected regions, citing "the extensive damage caused by simultaneous wildfires across the country."

Prime Minister Han Duck Soo, who was reinstated as acting president earlier yesterday, urged authorities to work together "until the wildfires are completely extinguished."

Meanwhile, wildfires have hit several regions in western Japan, injuring at least two people, forcing dozens of residents to evacuate and damaging a number of homes as hundreds of firefighters battled the widening blazes in the mountainous areas.

The fires in the western towns of Okayama, Imabari and Aso broke out on Sunday, quickly burning hundreds of hectares.

Six homes have been damaged in city of Okayama, where a fire started on Mount Kaigara and burned 250 hectares of the forest. In Imabari, in the Ehime prefecture on the main island of Shikoku, the fire left a firefighter slightly injured.

Firefighters and defense helicopters sprayed water but the blazes in the two prefectures had not been extinguished as of yesterday afternoon.

Some types of extreme weather have a well-established link with climate change, such as heatwaves or heavy rainfall.

Other phenomena such as forest fires, droughts, snowstorms and tropical storms can result from a combination of complex factors.

A smaller fire was detected in the mountainous village of Aso in the Kumamoto prefecture on the southern main island of Kyushu earlier Sunday, but it was extinguished early yesterday, according to authorities. Local media said the fire started while residents were burning trash.

Agencies