[Anchor]
Rain fell in the southern regions, including Busan, over the weekend, but the amount was far from enough to alleviate the drought. Reservoirs are running dry one after another, raising concerns that drought damage will begin in earnest.
Reporter Kim su-yun has the story.
[Reporter]
This village in Busan, home to about 60 households, has been using water from a nearby valley as its tap water source for decades.
As the valley water has recently dried up, residents' worries are growing.
[Kim Myung-ja / Busan Sagi Village Resident : I've lived in this house for 60 years, and this is the first time I've faced such trouble. It's the first time I've ever seen it this dry.]
This is the valley that has been used as a tap water source for the villagers.
Despite the rain that fell over the weekend, it has completely dried up due to the drought.
Water is being pumped from emergency water supply facilities to put out the immediate fire, but the capacity and usage are limited.
[Kim Gyu-tak / Busan Sagi Village Resident Representative : In case of an emergency, we installed yesterday what was designed by the government as an emergency water supply so that it can reach the drinking water tank.]
[Lee Hye-sook / Busan Sagi Village Resident : We can't even think about watering the fields. There isn't even enough drinking water for people, so crops, peppers, and everything else are drying up and dying...]
Reservoirs that must supply agricultural water show clear cracks in various places.
The reservoir storage rate is at a quarter of the average year's level.
Due to the rain that fell over the weekend, you can find a little moisture even on the cracked bottom of this reservoir.
However, water has not yet risen to the sluice gates that actually release agricultural water into the paddies and fields.
At Hoedong Reservoir, an emergency water source in Busan, receding waterlines 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.]
Rainfall in the Busan, Ulsan, and South Gyeongsang Province areas over the past six months has been only about half of normal levels, leading to drought alerts ranging from Caution to Alert stages in various places.
The rain, which only reached a maximum of around 20 millimeters over the weekend, instead brought humid heat.
[Lee Young-chan / Sangbuk-myeon, Yangsan, South Gyeongsang Province : (The rain) barely came. A huge amount needs to fall. We need rain right now.]
With daytime highs yesterday (the 10th) reaching 33.9°C (93°F) in Changnyeong and 33.2°C (92°F) in Gimhae, South Gyeongsang Province, sweltering heat is expected to continue for the time being, requiring caution against heat-related illnesses.
(Photo: Yonhap News)
(Reported by Jung Kyeong-moon | Video editing by Park Ji-in | Design by Kang Yoon-jung)
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