Yeongdeok, South Korea

Un incendio devastador en la góndola de un aerogenerador en Yeongdeok ha provocado la muerte de tres trabajadores de mantenimiento que se encontraban realizando labores de rutina en la parte superior de la estructura. Según los informes del Korea Herald, el fuego se originó a más de 80 metros de altura, atrapando a los técnicos sin posibilidad de evacuación antes de que las llamas consumieran la…

By Choe Sang-Hun, NY Times, Jan. 5, 2016

YEONGDEOK, South Korea--Visitors to this idyllic stretch of coast marvel at the landscapes of emerald sea crashing against steep bluffs and undulating hills quilted with green pines. They stop at seaside restaurants with cheerful red signs advertising the local delicacy, known as bamboo crab, and watch trawlers sail back to picturesque fishing villages.

Yet for many of the people who actually make Yeongdeok (pronounced Young-duck) their home, life has become increasingly gloomy--and solitary. Young people leave to pursue careers in distant cities, and years of overfishing has led to skimpier catches. On weekdays, when the tourists and sightseers have left, loneliness descends.

So in 2010, the 399 mostly older people who made up the population of three villages agreed to give up their land and their centuries-old way of life to make room for something few other places wanted: a nuclear power plant.

That act plunged the surrounding Yeongdeok County into a bitter debate over whether the plant would be a savior or a death knell. The clash also revealed the depth of despair in South Korea’s increasingly empty rural communities, as well as growing misgivings about the country’s heavy dependence on nuclear power.

“We have no hope, no alternative other than a nuclear power plant,” said Lee Wan-seop, 54.

Mr. Lee, a Yeongdeok native, believed that a power plant would bring “a great luck,” creating jobs and revenues, and arrest the county’s long decline.

On the other side of the debate were villagers like Shin Wang-ki, 56, who grows pears, apples and peaches and believed that a power plant would mean the end to a longstanding and cherished way of life.

“No way! Who’s going to buy fruits or crabs from an area near a nuclear power plant?” he said. “I inherited a clean land from my ancestors and want to leave it untainted for my children.”

Yeongdeok, 155 miles southeast of Seoul, has some of the more beautiful vistas along the country’s east coast. Rolling waves burst into snow-white fields of foam at the foot of cliffs. For centuries, fishermen have carved their homes into the bluffs, like bird’s nests, plucking abalones and sailing out for bamboo crabs.

Yet the county’s unusual pitch for a nuclear plant was driven by the same fight for survival seizing rural communities in South Korea and many other parts of the world. (Cheongsong, a county west of Yeongdeok, is campaigning for a new state prison.)

Yeongdeok’s population, numbering 113,000 in 1974, has plunged to just 38,000--nearly one-third of the people are 65 or older--and with deaths outnumbering births four to one, it is expected to shrink further. The county can supply only 8.8 percent of its budget on its own; the central government makes up the rest.

So in 2005, when South Korea sought a storage site for low-level radioactive waste from its reactors but faced often violent protests from many communities, Yeongdeok volunteered.

But Yeongdeok lost out to a rival bidder, Gyeongju to the south, after a greater percentage of residents, 89.5 percent, agreed to put the radioactive dump there.

Five years later, when Yeongdeok learned of the government’s search for sites for new nuclear power plants, it did not want to lose out again. This time, it won the approval of all residents of the three villages offered as a site, as well as from all seven members of the County Council, before applying to the government.

Kim Il-kwang, a fisherman, said he had few qualms about vacating Seokri, the village where his family has lived for nine generations, chiefly because it was dying a natural death anyway. Five hundred people lived there when he was young. Most of the 100 or so who remain are so old, Mr. Kim said, that he was considered “on the younger side.”

Mr. Kim is 72.

“If someone had to give up their village for Yeongdeok, we thought we might as well sacrifice ours,” he added. “Compensation we hoped to get for moving out would also be the best price we could ever expect for our land.”

With no oil or gas reserves, South Korea must import almost all of its energy resources and finds nuclear power the cheapest way to keep its industries supplied with electricity. Its 24 nuclear reactors generate one-third of the country’s electricity. Four reactors are under construction, and another six are set to be built by 2027, including the two here.