Seoul Tourist Landmark Becomes Infested with Cockroaches

[Anchor]

A park in Seoul, known as a popular spot for night views, has recently gained notoriety for a different reason: cockroaches. The city spent 60 billion won to transform the area into a pedestrian-friendly urban space, but despite emergency pest control efforts, complete eradication appears difficult.

Reporter Jeong Ji-yeon covered the story on-site.

[Reporter]

Seoullo 7017 is an elevated pedestrian park that the Seoul Metropolitan Government created by spending 60 billion won instead of demolishing the old Seoul Station overpass, which was built in the 1970s.

Since its opening in 2017, it has established itself as a landmark for night views, but recently, it has become more famous for its cockroaches than its scenery.

In a video posted on social media by a foreign tourist in mid-June, swarms of cockroaches can be seen crawling over the park benches.

[Lee Min-young and Choi Jun-seo / Gangseo-gu, Seoul: We talked about it. This bridge is full of cockroaches. You would expect there to be no cockroaches here, since it is elevated and on a bridge.]

As photos and videos of cockroach swarms in various parts of the park continued to surface, the Seoul Metropolitan Government launched emergency pest control measures.

[Management Team Leader, Seoullo Management Office: We conducted the first round of pest control on June 18. We plan to conduct four additional rounds, once a month from July to October.]

A week after two rounds of pest control work were completed, our reporting team visited the site.

We were able to easily spot cockroaches on the park floor and on the walls of the flower beds, and even saw baby cockroaches inside the planters.

Although the situation has improved slightly due to the pest control efforts, cockroaches are still appearing.

Two of them were even spotted together near a tree.

It is a situation that is embarrassing for a tourist attraction.

The park has been taken over by the Japanese cockroach, a type of house cockroach. Experts suggest that because of the characteristics of an urban overpass, there are few natural predators, making complete eradication unlikely.

[Dahuk / YouTuber specializing in insects and reptiles: If they carry out pest control very aggressively, I think the population will decrease significantly. However, the moment that pest control stops, they will increase again. I don't think there will ever be a situation where you won't see cockroaches at all in the future.]

[Tagel / Tourist from Mongolia: My friend told me the night view was beautiful. If I see a lot of cockroaches in a public space, I think my perception of Korea would change.]

It is expected to take a considerable amount of time before pest control measures can be fully effective at this tourist landmark.

(Video Editing: Lee So-young, VJ: Kim Hyung-jin)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.