Casualties, outages as rain and wind batter country

Jamsu Bridge, the underpass of Banpo Bridge, is flooded on Friday afternoon after the water level of the Han River rose overnight. [YONHAP]

Torrential rains and strong gusts resulted in at least four more casualties as monsoon downpours wreaked havoc across the country before the weekend.

Local authorities in Nonsan, South Chungcheong, reported that four people visiting a mountainside columbarium were overtaken by a landslide at 4 p.m. Friday.

Emergency personnel managed to find and evacuate all four individuals but said that two were already in a state of cardiac arrest when they arrived at a nearby hospital.

Individuals are often reported to be in a state of cardiac arrest before officially being declared dead.

The pair were an elderly couple, estimated to be in their 60’s and 70’s.

Regarding the other two victims, authorities said one is in critical condition and that the other, believed to be the son of the elderly couple, has regained consciousness.

The accident occurred three days after a man in his 70s was found dead near a stream in Yeoju, Gyeonggi, after CCTV showed him being swept away by currents in a flooded area.

In Seoul, heavy showers overnight Thursday temporarily cut power to 4,000 households and forced the closure of several major traffic arteries.

The Korea Electric Power Corp. is currently working to restore power to 2,000 households in Hongje-dong, Seodaemun District, which suffered an outage after a falling tree damaged a high-voltage power line in the area, according to the Central Disaster Management Headquarters (CDMH) on Friday.

Heavy rain on Thursday also caused an outage in Dobong District, northern Seoul, with some 2,000 households losing electricity until Friday morning, when power was partially restored.

A total of 79 people across the capital have been evacuated due to rain-related causes, according to the CDMH.

The torrential downpour on Thursday evening led to the collapse of a road embankment in Seodaemun District, western Seoul at 9:45 p.m., forcing the evacuation of 46 residents.

Amid heavy rain, a landslide alert was issued to residents of Nowon District, northern Seoul, at 4:46 a.m. Friday, but was lifted at 7:09 a.m.

The rain also disrupted traffic across the capital as the water level of the Han River rose, inundating Jamsu Bridge and parts of the Olympic Expressway on the southern bank of the river.

Parks and trails along the Han River are also currently flooded, and the Seoul city government has restricted entry to all of the city’s 27 streams and their pathways.

Heavy rains are expected to continue soaking the peninsula through the weekend and next week as the current monsoon front lingers over the country, according to the Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA).

The KMA said that downpours over the weekend could dump as much as 30 to 80 millimeters of rain per hour in the greater Seoul area. The weather service predicted that over 250 millimeters of rain would fall on the capital region through Saturday.

South Chungcheong and North Jeolla are also expected to be hard-hit, with over 400 millimeters of rain forecast to fall in the two regions through Saturday.

President Yoon Suk Yeol on Thursday told the government to engage in an all-out effort to prevent accidents and casualties from the rain, noting that seemingly excessive precautions should be taken in potential disaster situations.

Yoon issued the order in a phone call with Prime Minister Han Duck-soo during his official visit to Poland, according to Senior Presidential Press Secretary Kim Eun-hye.

BY MICHAEL LEE [lee.junhyuk@joongang.co.kr]