Heavy rains flooded the South Korean capital region, turning the streets of Seoul’s affluent Gangnam district into rivers, leaving vehicles and public transportation systems overwhelmed.
At least nine people have been killed and six others are missing. Some victims drowned in their homes.
Abandoned cars and buses were strewn on the streets as the water receded on Tuesday. Workers cleared uprooted trees, mud and debris with power shovels and blocked off potholed streets.
Landslide alerts have been issued in nearly 50 cities and towns, while 160 hiking trails have been closed in Seoul and the mountainous province of Gangwon.
Dozens of roads, including major thoroughfares near the Han River, have been closed.
“The heavy rainfall is expected to continue for several days. We must remain vigilant and do everything possible to be ready to respond,” warned President Yoon Suk Yeol from the government’s emergency headquarters.
Most subway services in the Seoul metropolitan area resumed normal operations, but about 80 routes and dozens of riverside parking lots remained closed for safety reasons.
The President called on public employers and private companies to adjust their travel times and insisted that major measures be taken to restore damaged facilities and evacuate people from dangerous areas to avoid new deaths.
The rain started Monday morning and intensified through the evening.
Rescuers failed to save three people – two sisters in their 40s and a 13-year-old girl – who called for help before drowning in the basement of a house in southern Gwanak district from Seoul on Monday evening. Another woman drowned at her home in nearby Dongjak district, where a public worker died while clearing fallen trees, likely from electrocution.
Choi Seon-yeong, an official from the Dongjak district office, mentioned that it was not immediately clear whether the water was electrified due to a damaged power source or equipment that the man was using.
Three people were found dead in the rubble of a collapsed bus station and landslide in the nearby cities of Gwangju and Hwaseong.
The country’s meteorological agency on Tuesday maintained a heavy rain warning for the Seoul metropolitan area and neighboring areas. She warned that rainfall could reach five to 10 centimeters per hour in some areas. It could fall between 10 and 35 centimeters more on the capital during Thursday.
More than 45 centimeters of rain were measured in Seoul’s hardest-hit Dongjak district between 9 a.m. Monday and Tuesday morning. Rainfall per hour in this area exceeded 14 centimeters at one point Monday evening, which was the heaviest hourly downpour measured in Seoul since 1942.
Three people are missing in the Seocho district in southern Seoul. Some 800 buildings were damaged in the capital and nearly 1,400 people were driven from their homes on Tuesday evening, according to the Ministry of Security and the Interior.
As night fell, people were wading through thigh-high water in the streets of Gangnam, one of Seoul’s busiest neighborhoods. Automobiles and buses were stuck in the mud. Travelers evacuated the Isu metro station, whose stairs turned into waterfalls. In nearby Seongnam, a rain-weakened hill collapsed onto a college soccer field.
Thunderstorms also hit North Korea, where authorities issued heavy rain warnings for the south and west of the country. North Korea’s official Rodong Sinmun newspaper described the rain as potentially “disastrous” and called for measures to protect farmland and prevent flooding on the Taedong River, which runs through the capital, Pyongyang.