SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Rescuers searched Tuesday for about 10 people still missing in landslides and flooding caused by more than a week of torrential rains in South Korea, as the country’s military dispatched more than 10,000 soldiers to support the rescue work.
The torrential rains that have been hitting South Korea since July 9 have left 41 dead, 9 missing and 35 injured. The rainfall also forced around 12,780 people to evacuate and left around 28,600 households without power.
At a cabinet meeting on Tuesday, President Yoon Suk Yeol ordered officials to mobilize all available resources to rescue additional possible survivors, assist victims and carry out recovery work.
Yoon said the government plans to designate major rain-hit areas as special disaster areas to help speed recovery.
The Ministry of Defense said separately that it was sending equipment and 11,000 troops on Tuesday to support the government’s efforts to find missing people and repair the damage.
Most serious damage was reported in central and southern regions of South Korea.
In the city of Yecheon, in the south-east of the country, eight people are still missing following landslides and floods. The ninth missing person is in the southeastern city of Busan, according to the Ministry of Interior and Security.
In addition, 14 deaths were reported at a tunnel in the central city of Cheongju, where 17 vehicles, including a bus, were trapped in a flash flood that may have filled the passage. Authorities earlier mobilized divers and other workers to rescue survivors and recover bodies before ending the search inside the tunnel on Monday evening. The Department of Security said officials were searching areas near the tunnel on Tuesday.
The bad weather was also affecting many other places around the world. Earlier this month, relentless flooding also inundated parts of India, Japan, China, Turkey and the United States.
Although destructive floods occur in different parts of the world, atmospheric scientists say they have this in common: With climate change, storms are forming in a warmer atmosphere, making extreme rainfall a more common reality. frequent now.