Wildfires in South Korea's southern regions have left 24 people dead and destroyed more than 300 structures, including large parts of an ancient Buddhist temple complex.

Buseoksa temple filed a lawsuit, demanding the statue's return from the South Korean government. It argued that the statue was created as an offering to the South Korean temple around 1330.

Workers cut down trees and put up protection around a temple in the South Korean city of Andong, one of the hardest hit areas, as wildfires continue to scorch southern regions of the country.

The late Ven. Seonjeong was named the temple's head monk in 2002 by the Beophwa Order of Korean Buddhism. Having maintained the temple on his own since then, he was respected by the villagers for ...

The ruling effectively ends the protracted legal dispute over the roughly 50-centimetre (20-inch) statue of a sitting Buddhist Bodhisattva, which was stolen from a Japanese temple by South Korean ...