hankyoreh

On the morning of Aug. 9, local resident Jeon Ye-seong (52) uses an umbrella to point to where the water level had been the previous night when he had attempted to rescue the family inside the semi-basement dwelling. (Ko Byung-chan/The Hankyoreh)

“After rescuing my daughters, I heard there were people trapped in the unit next door, so I and a man in his 30s who lives on the second floor tried to pry open the window next door… But the water was already so high, and the pressure was such that we couldn’t pry it open.”

Jeon Ye-seong, a 52-year-old resident at “J” Villa in the Sillim neighborhood of Seoul’s Gwanak District, agonized Tuesday morning over having been unable to save his neighbors from floodwaters the night before.

“If there had been even one more person with us, we could have saved them,” Jeon said, trailing off. “I’ve never seen water be such a terrifying force.”

Jeon had been out around 9 pm on Monday when he received a call from his daughter telling him that rainwater was “pouring in through the windows.” He rushed home to break open the windows of his semi-basement apartment and rescue his three daughters, who are all in their 20s.

After learning that two sisters in their 40s and a teenage girl were trapped in the unit right next door, he attempted to save them too, but was unable to.

At around 12:26 am, firefighters broke through the window and pulled out the Jeons’ neighbors: a 47-year-old woman, her 46-year-old sister, and the sister’s 13-year-old daughter.

But they were already dead.

Police tape barricades the stairs down to the semi-basement dwelling where three family members perished during flash flooding on Aug. 8. (Ko Byung-chan/The Hankyoreh)

The 47-year-old sister had a developmental disability and was registered with the local community center as a disabled person and basic livelihood security recipient. The sisters’ 73-year-old mother also lived with them, but she avoided the disaster because she was in the hospital at the time of the flooding due to a chronic condition.

“My understanding is that [the mother] had been in the hospital for some time due to poor health,” a 73-year-old resident of the same building said.

“My wife told her about the accident, and apparently she was inconsolable,” he added.

As floodwaters suddenly swelled in the area around 9 pm on Monday, they poured into the semi-basement apartment unit, and the residents were unable to escape. Acquaintances and neighbors began making calls to the police and firefighters around 9 pm to send in rescuers.

But with many other reports of torrential rains coming in around the same time, the police and firefighters were only able to arrive at the scene 30 minutes after the situation was reported.

“We received the call at 8:59 pm, and patrol division officers arrived at the scene at about 9:30 pm,” the Gwanak Police Station said.

“The patrol division had received over 40 reports, which caused unavoidable delays,” it explained.

The Gwanak Fire Station said it had received the call at 9:02 pm, but that all of its workers were in the field, so it put in a support request to a nearby fire station, and the first personnel arrived at the scene at around 9:46 pm.

“While the firefighters were on the scene, they did not have the necessary equipment to open the submerged door, so that caused some additional delays,” it added. “In the end, they were unable to open the door and had to break open a window.”

Other similar deaths from flash flooding were reported. Around 10:10 pm on Monday in the Sangdo neighborhood of Seoul’s Dongjak District, a woman in her 50s was found dead after being trapped in her flooded semi-basement apartment.

“At 8:27 pm, we received a report from the woman’s younger sister saying that the water level had risen in her apartment, and she was trapped,” the Dongjak Fire Station said.

“Personnel were sent to the scene, and the woman’s body was discovered at around 10:10 pm,” it continued.

“Flooding throughout Dongjak District caused difficulties traveling and led to delays in arriving at the scene,” it explained. The woman who died was also registered as a recipient of basic livelihood security benefits.

The tragedies have sparked calls for more fundamental measures to address the issue of flooding in semi-basement apartment units. According to Statistics Korea census data, a total of 327,320 South Korean households nationwide lived in semi-basement units as of 2020.

After semi-basement units bore the brunt of flood damages when Typhoon Kompasu struck in 2010, the city of Seoul banned the construction of residential semi-basement units in low-lying areas.

Even so, a total of 200,849 households in Seoul alone were counted in 2020 as living in semi-basement units. At 20,113, Gwanak District accounted for the most such households anywhere in the city.

To prevent flooding in semi-basement units, individuals can request the installation of water-stopping plates and sewage backflow prevention apparatuses.

But observers said that system is inadequate to address the problem, insisting that with more disasters of this kind predicted to arise in the future due to climate change, more comprehensive measures are needed to prevent flooding and address other issues for households living in semi-basement apartments.

“Semi-based residential units aren’t suitable for people to live in due to the lack of proper drainage and ventilation, and people have been repeatedly commenting on the risks of flooding,” said Hong Jeong-hoon, a research fellow at the Korea Center for City and Environment Research.

“This latest tragedy can be seen as a predictable outcome in a sense, resulting from the central and local governments ignoring the repeated cases of semi-basement apartments suffering from flooding,” he added.

“We need a more realistic system to provide rental housing to households living in underground units, and there needs to be proactive support for remodeling of owner-occupied dwellings to prevent flooding,” Hong stressed.

“In the long term, we need to move in the direction of prohibiting people living in underground units,” he continued.

By Ko Byung-chan, staff reporter

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