Walking with a cane, 84-year-old apple farmer Kim Mi-ja surveys the wreckage of her village, which was reduced to rubble and covered in ash by South Korea's worst wildfires.

Kim built her house in Chumok-ri village herself when she first moved there from the city but, like most houses in the area, it was totally destroyed by the blazes that killed 28 people.

"My heart feels like it's going to burst even now speaking about it," she told AFP.