40 Killed, 14 Missing by Guerrilla Torrential Rain in Capital City Area

By the torrential downpour up to 100 mm per an hour at the night of July 14, 40 people were killed and 14 is missing in the capital city area including Seoul, Kyonggi, and Incheon.

The Seoul Subway had to temporarily stop its operation by the submersion and the localized torrential rains flooded out 21,144 houses, creating 40 thousands flood victims.

Particularly, the localized torrential rains, concentrated rains up to 99.5 mm for an hour from 2:10 p.m. in the Seoul city area, poured in the central area including Kwanghwamun and submerged the buildings and houses. The precipitation per hour recorded the first in the past 37 years and the third in the history of the Korean meteorological observation, followed by the first in Aug. 5, 1942 (118.6 mm) and Sep. 13, 1964 (116.0 mm).

The total amount of rainfall on July 15 (273.4 mm) recorded at the 5th since the first meteorological observation in 1907. The rainfall of the cities at 10:00 p.m., July 15, recorded 310.1 mm in Seoul, 220.5 mm in Incheon, 217.3 mm in Chuncheon, 175.4 mm in Tongducheon, and 168.0 mm in Hongcheon. The east part of Kangwon Province also had 50-100 mm rainfall started in the 15th afternoon and Chungchong and Cholla area recorded 20-60 mm precipitation.

The victims of each area are as follows: 26 deaths and 2 missing in Seoul, 10 deaths and 12 missing in Kyonggi, 4 deaths in Incheon. The causes of the life-tolls are revealed as house submersion (11), electric shock (19), collapsed houses and banks (5), and torrent (16).

Meanwhile, the residents of the damaged area criticized that the delayed operation of the draining pumps by the Seoul city increased the damages. However, a related official of Seoul city said that ``the waterway of the city was designed to drain the torrential rains up to 74 mm precipitation per an hour, which is expected once in 10 years. Therefore, this localized torrential rain reaching up to 100 mm precipitation per an hour is way over the drainage capacity.``

Loss of Lives: 10 people were killed in the Sillim-Dong area. A car swept by flood crashed into a propane gas container of a local bar. Three people were killed by the fire caused by the gas explosion about 3:10 p.m. in Sillim-Dong.

The Samsungcheon stream nearby the Anyang Resorts was flooded in 6:10 p.m. and swept the tenement houses in 33-6 Anyang 2 Dong, killing Ms. Lee Jung-Hee (52), and Ms. Lee Eun-Hee (42) and her daughter Choi Ming-Kyong (10), who rented the basement apartment. Four campers including the Kim Dong-chul (13)and his brother Dong-jun (10) are missing by the torrent of the valley in Noksu Farmland, Gapyong, Kyonggi. The missing people mounted up 12 during the weekend in the Kyonggi area.

The suspension of the Subway operation and the submersion of the roads: The operation of the Seoul subway was interrupted by the torrential rains in many places but most of the operation was quickly recovered except for the 7th line. The subway operation through the 12 stations between Cheongdam and Boramae was stopped by the submersion of the Express Bus Terminal station of the 7th line at 3:00 a.m.

Seoul city deployed an emergence recovery team and the subway operation through Boramae to Naebang was recovered at 10:55 a.m. but the rest of stations are expected to be normalized by the 16th afternoon.

Loss of Properties: Total 9775 houses were flooded in Seoul, including 5200 in Imun-Dong and Jangan-Dong, Dongdaemun, and Daerim 1-3 Dongs and Singil 5 Dong.

In addition, 3615 houses were submerged by the torrential rains in the 19 cities and counties of Kyonggi and consequently 4291 people lost their houses. 870 hectares of farms were washed away and 108 green houses made by vinyl were destroyed.

Jung Yeon-Wook jyw11@donga.com