SEOUL — At 4:40 p.m. on Monday, the 13-year-old lady texted her 72-year-old grandmother who was once within the clinic, wishing her neatly and announcing that she was once praying for her fast restoration.
“How sweet of you, my little puppy!” the grandmother texted again.
That was once the remaining time she talked along with her granddaughter.
Four hours later, floods precipitated by means of one in every of South Korea’s heaviest rainfalls gushed down the stairs into the three-room, semi-underground house in southern Seoul the place {the teenager} had lived along with her mom, 47, and her aunt, 48.
The circle of relatives had moved into the home seven years in the past. They knew the low-lying district was once liable to flooding, nevertheless it was once affordable and with regards to a central authority welfare heart the place the aunt, who had Down syndrome, may just get lend a hand.
The heavy rainfalls that struck the Seoul metropolitan space from Monday till early Wednesday left six folks lacking and no less than 9 lifeless, together with the circle of relatives of 3, highlighting the dilemma of South Korea’s city deficient in addition to the rustic’s housing disaster and rising inequality.
The water rolled down with such power that the circle of relatives may just no longer push their handiest door open, in line with neighbors and emergency officers. The lady’s mom banged at the door and known as her neighbors for lend a hand. The neighbors known as the federal government’s 119 emergency reaction hotline at the circle of relatives’s behalf, however such a lot of flood sufferers had been dialing in that their calls didn’t undergo.
Two community males attempted to rescue the circle of relatives via the home’s street-level window, however they might no longer cross throughout the anti-theft, metal grating blockading the window. “The water filled the house so quickly we couldn’t do anything about it,” Jeon Ye-sung, 52, a neighbor, advised newshounds.
Mr. Jeon rushed house on Monday night time after his daughter advised him at the telephone that the water was once gushing throughout the home windows into their personal semi-underground house. He broke the home windows to rescue his 3 daughters. But he and every other neighbor may just no longer succeed in his neighbors.
By the time rescue officers pumped the water out early Tuesday, they discovered the circle of relatives of 3 lifeless.
South Korea’s city deficient steadily reside in banjiha, or semi-underground properties. The flood danger of those underground properties was once dramatically depicted within the South Korean film “Parasite,” which become the primary foreign-language film to win the Academy Award for Best Film in 2020.
One of the 9 lifeless was once a lady in her 50s who additionally lived in a semi-underground house in Seoul. She fled the floodwater however returned to her house to rescue her cat and didn’t make it out alive.
In Seoul, a town the place sky-high housing costs are one of the vital greatest political problems, residing excessive and dry in tall rental constructions constructed by means of the rustic’s conglomerates like Samsung and Hyundai is a standing image.
But the deficient steadily reside in affordable, damp and musty banjiha. Hundreds of hundreds reside in such properties within the congested metropolitan space, the place they try to seek out jobs, get monetary savings and train their youngsters to triumph over rising inequality.
Over the years, Seoul has introduced to lend a hand the ones residing in such basement residences, offering them with pumps and different apparatus to battle floods. It has additionally renovated sewer programs in low-lying districts to lend a hand drain rainwater extra temporarily. The govt has prompt the ones residing in semi-underground basements to transport to state-owned residences with affordable rents.
Still, hundreds of households reside in banjiha, fearing floods each and every monsoon season. They construct small dikes with sandbags round their properties. When the floodwater recedes, they put their clothes and furnishings in alleyways to dry. In a survey in 2020, greater than part of the five hundred semi-underground families in two districts in Siheung, simply southwest of Seoul, reported their properties submerged in rainwater.
“When I returned home from work, I found my banjiha under water,” a semi-underground dweller wrote at the South Korean internet portal Naver on Tuesday. “It felt as if heaven had crashed down on me.”
On Tuesday, when President Yoon Suk-yeol visited the neighborhood the place the circle of relatives of 3 died, their house was once nonetheless stuffed with waist-high floodwater. Pillows, furnishings and plastic luggage floated within. Mr. Yoon needed to squat in the street outdoor to seem down into the house throughout the street-level window.
The community was once strewn with luggage of rubbish, rain-damaged furnishings and electronics that households dragged out in their basement properties. “There is hardly anything we can salvage,” stated Park Kyong-ja, 77, who has lived locally for 26 years.
Choi Tae-young, the pinnacle of the Seoul Metropolitan Fire and Disaster Headquarters, blamed the floodwater for blockading the door of the circle of relatives’s house. But neighbors accused the federal government of failing to alert citizens to the approaching floods. The town didn’t warn of the risk of a close-by movement overflowing till 9:21 p.m. Monday, in line with native media and neighbors.
From within their house, the circle of relatives of 3 known as neighbors between 8 p.m. and 9 p.m., interesting for lend a hand as a result of they might no longer get out. The teen’s mom, who was once known by means of the police and native media handiest by means of her remaining identify, Hong, often known as her mom within the clinic at 8:37 p.m., announcing that she may just no longer open the door on account of the floodwater, in line with the day by day newspaper JoongAng Ilbo.
“When I got out and rushed to their home, it was already filled with water and I could not see the inside,” Kim In-sook, a neighbor, advised newshounds. Police and firefighters may just pump out the water handiest hours later.
Hong Seok-cheol, 46, who lives in a semi-underground house subsequent door, left at 7:45 p.m. on Monday to devour out together with his spouse. When the couple returned house 40 mins later, they had been surprised to seek out the alleyway flooding. Their house was once stuffed with water.
“The rain came so fast and furious and the pressure on drainage pipes underground was so strong that they burst open, worsening the flood,” Mr. Hong stated. “There was no way my wife and I could have made out if we had been trapped inside.”
Some of the home items belonging to the circle of relatives of 3 sat outdoor the four-story development on Wednesday, together with a white teddy undergo. In the underground storage, 4 vehicles had been caked with dust.
“The torrential rainfall was the worst in 115 years,” Mr. Yoon, the president, stated all over a gathering with emergency reaction officers on Wednesday. “The poor and the weak are more vulnerable to natural disasters. Our country will become safe when they feel safe.”
