Rain, flooding in S. Korea leave 37 dead

SEOUL — Rescuers battled on Sunday to reach people trapped in a flooded tunnel in South Korea, and at least 37 people had died and nine were missing in the country after heavy rains caused flooding and landslides.

South Korea is at the peak of its summer monsoon season, and there was heavy rainfall for four days, causing a major dam to overflow.

A total of 37 people had been found dead in southeastern North Gyeongsang Province and central Chungcheong Province, according to the central disaster and safety countermeasure headquarters.

Heavy rain warnings were issued for the provinces, some areas of which recorded an accumulated precipitation of more than 900 millimeters for the past week.

Flooding, housing collapses and landslides increased the casualties across the country.

Nine bodies were recovered from vehicles trapped in a flooded underground tunnel in the central town of Osong.

A total of 8,852 people from 14 cities and provinces were evacuated due to the downpour damage.

Nearly 400 rescue workers, including divers, were searching the tunnel in the central city of Cheongju, where vehicles, including a bus, were swamped by a flash flood on Saturday evening, said Seo Jeong-il, chief of the city's fire department.

Fire officials estimated that the tunnel filled with water in as little as two or three minutes.

Photos and video from the scene showed rescue workers establishing a perimeter and pumping brown water out of the tunnel as divers used rubber boats to move in and out of the area.

"We are focusing on the search operation as there are probably more people there," Seo said. "We are doing our best to finish it today."

Kong Seong-pyo, a 60-year-old Cheongju resident who frequently uses the underpass, said the government should have restricted access to the tunnel when flooding was expected. "I would have also died if I were submerged. I have no words to express this frustrating feeling," Kong told Reuters.

Yang Chan-mo, an official of the North Chungcheong provincial fire department, said it could take several hours to pump out all the water from the tunnel, which was still filled with 4 to 5 meters of water dense with mud and debris. Workers were proceeding slowly with the work to prevent any victims from being swept away, Yang said.

"I have no hope but I can't leave," Yonhap News Agency quoted a parent of one of those missing in the tunnel as saying.

"My heart wrenches thinking how painful it must have been for my son in the cold water."

Images broadcast on local television showed a torrential stream of water from a nearby river that had burst its banks flooding into the tunnel, as rescue workers struggled to use boats to get to people inside.

President Yoon Suk-yeol, who is on a trip to Europe, discussed the rain-related casualties and damages during an emergency meeting while traveling to Poland on a train after visiting Ukraine on Saturday, according to his office.

Earlier, he ordered Prime Minister Han Duck-soo to mobilize all available resources to minimize casualties.

Heavy downpour expected

More rain was forecast until Wednesday, and the meteorological administration said the weather posed a grave danger.

South Korea has been pounded by heavy rains since July 9. The rainfall had forced more than 6,100 people to evacuate and left 27,260 households without electricity in the past several days while flooding or destroying dozens of homes, the Ministry of the Interior and Safety said. At least 22 people were being treated for injuries.

The country is regularly hit by flooding during the summer monsoon period. Scientists say climate change has made weather events worldwide more extreme and more frequent.

Last year, South Korea endured record-breaking rains and flooding that left more than 11 people dead. They included three people who died trapped in a Seoul basement apartment of the kind that became internationally known because of the Oscar-winning film Parasite.

Agencies - Xinhua