Six hikers have died after being caught in a forest fire on a mountain on the country’s main Java island, an official said yesterday. At least three other hikers were also severely injured in the Sunday accident on the slope of Lawu Mountain, said Yatmo, a spokesman for the local Search and Rescue Agency. The bodies of the victims are being evacuated to nearby hospitals, added Yatmo, who uses a single name. The victims were among more than a dozen hikers who were caught in a fire that raced through forests on the 3,265-meter mountain located on the border between East and Central Java provinces. The fire was believed to be caused by a bonfire set by hikers. Another hiking group of 13 senior high school students was evacuated safely, the Detik.com website reported. It three women were among the dead.
South Korea | Koreas to resume emotional reunions of divided families
Kim Wu-jong is partially paralyzed, poor and lives alone in a small, run-down home in Seoul. But the 87-year-old feels like the luckiest man in South Korea: This week he will travel to North Korea to meet his younger sister, the “flower and princess of my family,” for the first time since the Korean War pulled them apart more than six decades ago. “I cannot describe how happy I am,” Kim said in a recent interview at his home, with a broad smile. “It’s better than winning the lottery.” Kim and about 640 other South Koreans will meet their North Korean relatives at the authoritarian country’s scenic Diamond Mountain resort in a reunion program that begins today. Hundreds of thousands of people on both sides of the Demilitarized Zone want such reunions, but the two countries have pulled off relatively few of them. This round, the first since February 2014, was agreed to in August, after the Koreas met for marathon talks.
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