Heavy downpours lashed South Korea for a ninth day on Monday as rescue workers struggled to search for survivors in landslides, buckled homes and swamped vehicles in the most destructive storm to hit the country this year.
At least 40 people have died, 34 others are injured and more than 10,000 people have had to evacuate from their homes since July 9, when heavy rain started pounding the country, Associated Press reported.
The severest damage has been concentrated in South Korea’s central and southern regions.
In the central city of Cheongju, hundreds of rescue workers, including divers, continued to search for survivors in a muddy tunnel where about 15 vehicles, including a bus, got trapped in a flash flood that may have filled up the passageway within minutes Saturday evening.
The devastation prompted the country’s president, Yoon Suk Yeol, to warn that the climate crisis had made extreme weather a fact of life.
“This kind of extreme weather event will become commonplace … we must accept climate change is happening, and deal with it,” Yoon said as he prepared to visit flood-hit North Gyeongsang province.
Yoon said the idea that extreme weather linked to climate change is an anomaly and can’t be helped “needs to be completely overhauled”, while calling for “extraordinary determination” to improve the country’s preparedness and response measures.
