Close call

Smoke pours from Banggyo Elementary School in Hwaseong, Gyeonggi, Friday after a large fire broke out around 10 a.m. in the basement parking lot of the school - a new structure that only opened on Dec. 1. Construction workers drove their excavators to the site to save 20 children from the second floor, retrieving them in the vehicle’s buckets. All 131 people inside were safely evacuated and firefighters extinguished the blaze within half an hour. Its cause has yet to be determined. [KIM SEON-A]