[Anchor]
Rain fell in the southern regions, including Busan, over the weekend, but it was far from enough to cool down the heat or ease the drought. As streams and reservoirs continue to dry up one by one, concerns are growing that drought damage will worsen.
Reporter Kim su-yun visited the scene.
[Reporter]
This village in Busan, home to some 60 households, has used water from a nearby stream as its tap water source for decades.
As the stream water has recently dried up, residents' worries are mounting.
[Kim Myung-ja / Resident of Sagi Village, Busan: I have lived in this house for 60 years, and this is the first time I have faced such hardship. It is the first time I have ever seen it this dry.]
This is the stream that has been used as a tap water source for the villagers.
Despite the rain that fell over the weekend, it has dried up completely due to the drought.
Water is being drawn from storage in emergency water supply facilities to put out the immediate fire, but capacity and usage are limited.
[Kim Gyu-tak / Resident Representative of Sagi Village, Busan: In case of an emergency, the government yesterday installed a system designed for emergency water supply to reach even the drinking water tanks.]
[Lee Hye-sook / Resident of Sagi Village, Busan: We cannot even dare to water the fields. There is not enough drinking water for people, so crops, peppers, and everything else are drying up and dying...]
Reservoirs that must supply agricultural water show clear signs of cracking in various places.
The storage rate is one-fourth of the average year.
Due to the rain that fell over the weekend, you can see a little moisture even on the cracked bottom of this reservoir.
However, the water has not yet risen up to the sluice gates that actually send agricultural water down to the rice paddies and fields.
At Hoedong Reservoir, an emergency water supply source in Busan, receding water levels are clearly visible along the edges and bridge piers.
[Lee Hyung-chul / Geumjeong-gu, Busan: You see where the grass is growing? All of this used to be water.]
Precipitation in the Busan, Ulsan, and Gyeongnam regions over the past six months has only been about half of the average year, leading to droughts at the "caution" to "alert" stages in various places.
The rain over the weekend, which maxed out at around 20 mm, only brought humid heat instead.
[Lee Young-chan / Sangbuk-myeon, Yangsan, Gyeongnam: (The rain) was just a little bit. We need a huge amount of rain right now.]
With daytime highs reaching 33.9°C (93°F) in Changnyeong, Gyeongnam, and 33.2°C (92°F) in Gimhae today (August 10), scorching heat is expected to continue for a while, calling for caution against heat-related illnesses.
(Photo: Yonhap News)
(Reported by Jung Kyung-mun | Video edited by Park Ji-in | Design by Kang Yoon-jung)
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