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As of this writing, it’s unclear how many people have been killed in the fire that has destroyed much of the South Korean capital.
Fire officials said on Tuesday that there were at least 20 people killed in total, including five firefighters.
But they said it wasn’t clear how many were killed because some of the bodies were burned to death.
South Korean news reports identified a man as the one who died after being shot by an unidentified person while trying to extinguish the blaze.
In a statement released Wednesday, the Korean Disaster Management Agency said that at least six people were killed in Seoul’s downtown area, the nation’s financial capital, and that two people died in nearby Jeju province.
A local government spokesman told The Associated Press that six people had been killed and at least seven others injured in the Seoul area, while three people were confirmed dead in Jeju.
Seoul’s mayor, Yoon Young-hee, has been criticized for failing to declare the city’s death toll.
He also has been accused of failing to properly respond to the outbreak.
In response, the mayor has been suspended from his post and his office has been shut down.
AP’s Kim Yoon-jeong, Matthew Lee and Jonathan Lemire contributed to this report.
