Five days of relentless rain in South Korea have caused at least 17 deaths and 11 missing people, said the Ministry of the Interior and Safety on Sunday.
Among the fatalities, one person was killed when a house collapsed due to heavy rain, while another was swept away by a swollen stream in Gapyeong, northeast of Seoul. In Sancheong, a southern town, 10 people lost their lives and four remain unaccounted for following a series of devastating landslides, flash floods, and house collapses over the weekend.
One person died and seven went missing across a number of locations including the southern city of Gwangju and Gapyeong. Earlier in the week, one person died in Osan, south of Seoul, after a retaining wall collapsed and buried a car. Three others were killed in South Chungcheong province in different incidents in a submerged car, an overflowing stream, and a flooded basement.
As of 4 p.m. Sunday, close to 2,730 people had been evacuated because of flood threats and structural damage. Even though the rain has subsided in the majority of the nation, and weather advisories have been cancelled, the aftermath is still ongoing.
Southern regions got between 600 to 800 millimetres (24–31 inches) of rain since Wednesday, government data said. President Lee Jae Myung sent his condolences to the families of the victims and vowed to declare the most affected zones as special disaster zones, which would facilitate more financial and logistical aid.
Weather officials said the heavy rains are to ease by Sunday night, to be replaced by a heat wave. The storm system that previously drenched southern areas has since migrated northward, officials said.
