[Anchor]

Heavy rain has battered the Gyeongsangnam-do region, which had been suffering from a severe drought, causing a wave of damage. In particular, extreme downpours exceeding 120mm per hour hit Geoje, triggering a landslide that left one person dead and two others injured.

Reporter Min Gyeongho has the details.

[Reporter]

The windows of the first and second floors of an apartment building were torn away along with their frames, and household items from inside spilled out through the living room windows.

At 4:40 AM today (August 17), mud and debris crashed into the first and second floors of an apartment building in Okpo-dong, Geoje, Gyeongsangnam-do.

The torrential rain that poured overnight caused a retaining wall directly behind the apartment to collapse, leading to a landslide.

[Kim Jung-su / Geoje Apartment Resident: Early in the morning, I had that window open, and there was a loud thunderclap! Trees fell down, and (the mud and debris) came rushing in....]

Rescue workers were dispatched to search for trapped people, and a man in his 20s living on the first floor was rescued and taken to a hospital, but ultimately died.

Two residents living in another unit on the first floor were also injured, but their injuries are reported not to be life-threatening.

Landslides occurred consecutively across Geoje, including mud from nearby hills collapsing near the entrance of Myeongjin Tunnel in Sangdong-dong and the Sinhyeon 1-gyo Intersection.

In Geoje, where rain began the day before yesterday, torrential rain poured down in the early hours of this morning as if the sky had burst open.

Starting around 1:30 AM, an extreme downpour of 124.5mm per hour was recorded, which is the second-highest officially observed record in the history of the Korea Meteorological Administration.

The daily precipitation reaching 638.7mm as of 6:00 PM is also the highest amount recorded since Typhoon Rusa dumped more than 700 to 800mm of rain in Gangwon-do in 2002.

[Kim Bun-yeon / Geoje Resident: I was too scared at night to even come out and look. Water just poured down from above completely as high as a person's height.]

The Geoje city government successively sent out emergency text messages warning of landslides and river flooding starting at 2:10 AM, and the National Fire Agency issued a national firefighting mobilization order at around 6:00 AM.

Eight downtown roads were submerged, restricting traffic in some sections, and the number of fire reports received in Geoje alone exceeded 1,600, including flooded homes and apartment underground parking lots.

A total of 91 people who were isolated due to flooded homes and other causes were rescued, and around 200 citizens who evacuated to village halls and other facilities had to spend a sleepless night.

Power outages also affected more than 1,600 households, including homes and stores in Ilun-myeon, Gohyeon-dong, and Jangseungpo-dong, causing inconvenience to residents.

(Photo: Yonhap News)
(Reported by Hwang Tae-cheol from KNN, Video edited by Park Chun-bae)