Record rainfall pounded most of the Seoul metropolitan region on Monday and Tuesday leaving 9 people dead and 6 others missing. The downpour flooded and destroyed roads and subway stations, triggered landslides, clogged underground water drainage systems, and forced the evacuations of people living in low-lying areas.
It was the highest amount of rainfall per hour witnessed in the capital region in 80 years, according to the Korea Meteorological Administration, the country’s central weather monitoring organization. Seoul’s Dongjak District was bombarded with the heaviest downpour in the city with 422 millimeters falling on Monday alone.
The amount of rain seen so far on Monday and Tuesday is almost equal to the volume the city sees on average in the entire month of July. Between 200 to 400 millimeters of rainfall also pummeled the cities of Yeoju, Gwangju and Yangpyeong County in Gyeonggi Province as well as Hoengseong and Hongcheon counties in Gangwon Province on the same day.
Damage was visibly serious in the southern Seoul districts of Dongjak, Seocho and Gangnam, where the terrain is lower than the rest of the city. On Tuesday morning, when the rain briefly stopped for a few hours, floods of rainwater on the roads in the areas drained, revealing empty vehicles ditched and strewn over the streets and curbs. Drivers stranded by the flooding the previous day had to leave their cars behind and evacuate. Some of the wrecked vehicles blocked the paths of cars and buses on Tuesday morning, causing traffic jams.
Ditched cars following Monday's heavy downpour are strewn over the road and swept to the roadside in Yeoju, Gyeonggi Province, Tuesday. Yonhap
Dramatic scenes of the wreckage were photographed and described in text messages and shared online. Some said they had to walk home after leaving their cars behind on flooded roads. Others said they had witnessed people getting out of their flooded cars on the road to start searching for alternative ways to evacuate.
Police said Tuesday morning that tow trucks started clearing roads littered with flooded vehicles.
A section of the Yongin-Seoul Highway in Yongin, Gyeonggi Province, near the
entrance of Hasanun Tunnel is closed after a landslide crushed the road with
rocks, destroying a road sign, Tuesday. YonhapFatal accidents followed the disaster. An SUV carrying three passengers along a mountainous highway in Gwangju, Gyeonggi Province, was swallowed by a sudden landslide. Rescuers found the driver dead at the scene and transported the others who survived to a hospital. In another southern Seoul district, Gwanak, three family members, one of whom was developmentally disabled, living in a semi-basement flat, became stranded when it became flooded via a sinkhole on an adjacent road on Monday evening. The family called emergency rescuers but all died before they arrived at the scene. A 60-something employee from Dongjak District Office also died while checking a fallen tree on a street due to the heavy rain. Police concluded that he had been electrocuted to death.
Vehicles pack a section of Olympic Highway near Banpo Bridge in Tuesday morning at times well past the usual morning rush hour. Yonhap
Bridges, highways and roads were paralyzed as the disaster created sink holes, submerging and sweeping them together with mounds of debris from trees, mud, rocks and other broken infrastructure materials. As of Tuesday morning, five sections of highways in Seoul were closed. Twenty-five sections of roads across Gyeonggi Province were also shut down.
The heavy rains are expected to continue throughout this week, according to weather forecasts, raising concerns of further impact throughout the country. The rain clouds are mostly concentrated above the southern Gyeonggi region, where at least 350 millimeters of more rain is expected until Thursday. The rest of the capital region will also see an additional 100 to 300 millimeters of rain until Friday.
People queue up to hail taxis in front of Seoul Station, where the metro service
was still unavailable Tuesday morning after torrential rains forced the station
to close on Monday. YonhapPrime Minister Han Duck-soo previously held another emergency meeting on Monday at the same place after the rains kept pounding down for almost the entire day. He raised the disaster control tower’s warning levels from level 2 to level 3 and also increased the national flood damage level from “caution” to “serious.”
