When the blaze, which erupted in North Gyeongsang province’s Uiseong, engulfed Sugianto’s coastal village in Yeongdeok last Tuesday night, he went around the area and knocked on neighbours’ doors telling them to evacuate.
Sugianto, along with the fishing village’s community chief, carried the elderly locals on their backs to a sea wall about 300m (984 feet) from the hamlet as the fast-moving flames approached.
“All I thought was that I needed to save the grandmas and the residents rapidly,” Sugianto, who came to the country on a work visa eight years ago and speaks fluent Korean, told public broadcaster KBS.
Sugianto said the sight of a shop being consumed by flames while he was transporting a woman on his back left him terrified.
An elderly resident who survived the ordeal thanked the 31-year-old for his heroic actions.
