SEOUL — At 4:40 p.m. on Monday, the 13-year-old lady texted her 72-year-old grandmother who was within the hospital, wishing her properly and saying that she was praying for her fast restoration.
“How sweet of you, my little puppy!” the grandmother texted again.
That was the final time she talked together with her granddaughter.
Four hours later, floods triggered by certainly one of South Korea’s heaviest rainfalls gushed down the steps into the three-room, semi-underground dwelling in southern Seoul the place {the teenager} had lived together with her mom, 47, and her aunt, 48.
The household had moved into the home seven years in the past. They knew the low-lying district was susceptible to flooding, nevertheless it was low cost and near a authorities welfare middle the place the aunt, who had Down syndrome, may get assist.
The heavy rainfalls that struck the Seoul metropolitan space from Monday till early Wednesday left six individuals lacking and at the very least 9 lifeless, together with the household of three, highlighting the predicament of South Korea’s city poor in addition to the nation’s housing disaster and rising inequality.
The water rolled down with such pressure that the household couldn’t push their solely door open, in line with neighbors and emergency officers. The lady’s mom banged on the door and known as her neighbors for assist. The neighbors known as the federal government’s 119 emergency response hotline on the household’s behalf, however so many flood victims have been dialing in that their calls didn’t undergo.
Two neighborhood males tried to rescue the household by way of the home’s street-level window, however they might not undergo the anti-theft, metal grating blocking the window. “The water filled the house so quickly we couldn’t do anything about it,” Jeon Ye-sung, 52, a neighbor, instructed reporters.
Mr. Jeon rushed dwelling on Monday night after his daughter instructed him on the telephone that the water was gushing by way of the home windows into their personal semi-underground dwelling. He broke the home windows to rescue his three daughters. But he and one other neighbor couldn’t attain his neighbors.
By the time rescue officers pumped the water out early Tuesday, they discovered the household of three lifeless.
South Korea’s city poor typically reside in banjiha, or semi-underground properties. The flood hazard of those underground properties was dramatically depicted within the South Korean film “Parasite,” which turned the primary foreign-language film to win the Academy Award for Best Film in 2020.
One of the 9 lifeless was a lady in her 50s who additionally lived in a semi-underground dwelling in Seoul. She fled the floodwater however returned to her dwelling to rescue her cat and didn’t make it out alive.
In Seoul, a metropolis the place sky-high housing costs are one of many largest political points, residing excessive and dry in tall residence buildings constructed by the nation’s conglomerates like Samsung and Hyundai is a standing image.
But the poor typically reside in low cost, damp and musty banjiha. Hundreds of 1000’s reside in such properties within the congested metropolitan space, the place they battle to search out jobs, get monetary savings and educate their kids to beat rising inequality.
Over the years, Seoul has supplied to assist these residing in such basement residences, offering them with pumps and different tools to battle floods. It has additionally renovated sewer programs in low-lying districts to assist drain rainwater extra shortly. The authorities has urged these residing in semi-underground basements to maneuver to state-owned residences with low cost rents.
Still, 1000’s of households reside in banjiha, fearing floods 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 half of the five hundred semi-underground households 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 on 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 household of three died, their dwelling was nonetheless crammed with waist-high floodwater. Pillows, furnishings and plastic baggage floated inside. Mr. Yoon needed to squat on the road exterior to look down into the house by way of the street-level window.
The neighborhood was strewn with baggage of rubbish, rain-damaged furnishings and electronics that households dragged out of their basement properties. “There is hardly anything we can salvage,” stated Park Kyong-ja, 77, who has lived within the neighborhood for 26 years.
Choi Tae-young, the top of the Seoul Metropolitan Fire and Disaster Headquarters, blamed the floodwater for blocking the door of the household’s dwelling. But neighbors accused the federal government of failing to alert residents to the approaching floods. The metropolis didn’t warn of the hazard of a close-by stream overflowing till 9:21 p.m. Monday, in line with native media and neighbors.
From inside their dwelling, the household of three known as neighbors between 8 p.m. and 9 p.m., interesting for assist as a result of they might not get out. The teenager’s mom, who was recognized by the police and native media solely by her final identify, Hong, additionally known as her mom within the hospital at 8:37 p.m., saying that she couldn’t open the door due to the floodwater, in line with the each 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, instructed reporters. Police and firefighters may pump out the water solely hours later.
Hong Seok-cheol, 46, who lives in a semi-underground dwelling subsequent door, left at 7:45 p.m. on Monday to eat out along with his spouse. When the couple returned dwelling 40 minutes later, they have been shocked to search out the alleyway flooding. Their dwelling was crammed 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 household of three sat exterior the four-story constructing on Wednesday, together with a white teddy bear. In the underground storage, 4 vehicles have been caked with mud.
“The torrential rainfall was the worst in 115 years,” Mr. Yoon, the president, stated throughout a gathering with emergency response officers on Wednesday. “The poor and the weak are more vulnerable to natural disasters. Our country will become safe when they feel safe.”
