8 die in typhoon; rehab budget set

The National Disaster Prevention and Countermeasures Headquarters has announced that, under the influence of Typhoon Saomai, eight people were killed, including accident victims, 227 evacuated, 4,894 hectares of farmland flooded and 9,056 hectares of rice land damaged.

In addition, the typhoon damaged 3,308 hectares of orchards, 109 houses, 59 ships, 60 roads and bridges, 69 port facilities and other small facilities across the nation, the disaster-relief agency reported.

With this, the NDPCH has decided to take the following steps: provision of 10 million won of compensation money for each of the dead or missing, subsidy of 8.1 million won in grants and 16.2 million won in long-term, low-interest loans for homes totally destroyed or swept away by the typhoon, and a rehabilitation fund of 18,800 won for each pyong of damaged farmland.

Choi Sung-Jin cschoi@donga.com