Cars Swept Away, Parking Lots Submerged... "Pouring Like a Waterfall"

[Anchor]

Yesterday (the 17th), which saw the heaviest rainfall ever recorded in Geoje's precipitation observation history, our station was flooded with eyewitness report videos.

Reporter Cho Min-ki brings us the footage capturing those harrowing moments.

[Reporter]

A street in Okpo-dong, Geoje, Gyeongsangnam-do.

Muddy water completely covers the entire road, rushing down with frightening force, while a man trying to retrieve his vehicle on the road is trapped by the current, unable to move an inch.

Sewage backs up and shoots upward, while cars unable to withstand the strong current are swept away as they are.

[Park Hyung-soo / Geoje, Gyeongsangnam-do: So much water came down from the mountain that it pushed the cars away. Water was gushing out like a waterfall, flowing down the roads and everywhere.]

Footage capturing the water rising by the minute overnight was also captured.

A building entrance where the current surged up to an adult's ankle height was submerged by about half in an instant.

One vehicle is buried under the current, making it hard to even recognize its shape.

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The situation did not improve even when morning came.

An apartment basement parking lot was completely flooded, with only the tops of vehicles barely visible, and elevators even stopped working due to a power outage.

[Kim Dong-hee / Geoje, Gyeongsangnam-do: Including the emergency stairs, the entire basement parking lot was submerged, causing a power outage for all households, leaving us stuck with nowhere to go.]

Shop windows across various streets were shattered into pieces, unable to withstand the rapid currents.

[Han Seung-heon / Geoje, Gyeongsangnam-do: The water came down to a degree that was a bit frightening. I was shocked for a moment, and thought something terrible was going to happen, making my heart sink...]

Tourists who visited Geoje for the holiday also had their hearts in their mouths due to the heavy rain.

[Yoon Ye-rin / Jongno-gu, Seoul: It rained so hard that we couldn't see anything ahead. It rained really heavily as if a hole had been punched in the sky, and many bricks flew around and ended up under the cars.]

Fire authorities explained that the torrential rain appeared to have worsened flood damage as it coincided with the high tide period of the sea.

The Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasure Headquarters decided to urgently provide 3 billion won in special allocation tax and 40 million won in disaster relief project funds to heavy rain-hit regions including Gyeongsangnam-do and Jeollanam-do.

(Video Editing: Lee Hong-myung, Footage Courtesy of Instagram @kang_body_)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.