New Delhi, March 27 -- The wildfires raging across South Korea are now "the largest on record", the country's disaster chief said Thursday. The current wildfires have burned more forest than any previous blazes. The death toll rose to 26.

"The wildfire is spreading rapidly," Lee Han-kyung, disaster and safety division chief, was quoted by AFP as saying. He said, "The forest damage has reached 35,810 hectares, already exceeding the area affected by the 2000 East Coast wildfire, previously the largest on record, by more than 10,000 hectares."

1. Multiple wildfires have been raging across South Korea's southeastern regions since last Friday. According to the Associated Press, the government has mobilised thousands of people, dozens of heli...