Fire at wind farm claims lives of workers inspecting turbine tower

Three workers have reportedly died after a wind turbine caught fire in South Korea.

Numerous media reports out of South Korea have all claimed that three workers have died at the 20-year-old Yeongdeok wind farm in the eastern coastal county of Yeongdeok in South Korea on Monday.

The Gyeongsangnam-do Fire Headquarters confirmed in their daily ‘firefighting activity status’ report on Tuesday morning that the fire, which was first reported at 1:11pm, remained “in progress” and that three people had died.

Authorities have apparently deployed 11 helicopters and nearly 150 personnel to put out the fire which has spread to the immediately surrounding scrubland.

The fire appears to have reached the wind turbine hub and at least two of the three turbine blades have since caught fire and fallen to the ground.

Located approximately 240 kilometres southeast of Seoul, the capital of South Korea, it unfortunately appears that the workers were inspecting the turbine following an incident at the same wind farm in February, when a turbine collapsed across a nearby road.

Yeongdeok Wind Power reportedly halted operations of all 23 wind turbines at the site following the collapse of the turbine in February while inspections were made. It is unclear at this stage what caused the fire.