Flood waters devastate residents in North Chungcheong

As of 3 p.m., the death toll from the flooded underpass in Osong alone stood at 9. Some 15 vehicles were submerged in the 430-meter (1,411-foot) long and 4.5-meter wide underpass after a levee along the Miho River, just 300 meters away, broke.

Emergency team carrying out a victim, who had died from the flooded underpass in Osong, North Chungcheong, on Saturday. The underpass was flooded after a levee along the nearby Miho River broke. [YONHAP]

A 35-year-old woman wondered aloud why her younger brother had to die at such a young age.

The 30-year-old victim, only identified by his surname Kim, was among the eight people that died from a flash flood in an underpass in Osong, North Chungcheong.

Kim, an elementary teacher in Cheongju, was driving his brother-in-law to the train station when his car suddenly got trapped in the underpass that flooded after the nearby Miho River overflowed on Saturday.

Kim had also recently gotten married, in May.

“His death doesn’t feel real,” his sister said. “He was a brother with a strong sense of responsibility who never bad-mouthed anyone.”

The brother-in-law, who was not identified, said the two climbed on top of the car’s roof when a gush of water swept into the underpass.

As the water quickly rose, the two of them tried to swim their way out.

The brother-in-law said all he remembers is that Kim disappeared in an instant.

View of the underpass that was submerged on Saturday and the rescue mission that continued on Sunday. [YONHAP]

Osong has been one of the areas hardest hit by the torrential rains. As of 3 p.m., the death toll from the flooded underpass alone stood at 9. Some 15 vehicles were submerged in the 430-meter (1,411-foot) long and 4.5-meter wide underpass after a levee along the Miho River, just 300 meters away, broke. The police estimate that in just two to three minutes, 60,000 tons of water had already flooded into the underpass.

The emergency response team has been trying to draw out the water from the underpass, with little success as of Saturday.

Around 4:33 a.m. Sunday, the roof of the bus in which five bodies were found became visible.

The rescue team was able to enter the underpass an hour and a half later when the water had further receded.

More than an hour after being dispatched, the rescue team was able to recover the bodies including a woman in her 70s.

Around 8:30 a.m. the body of a man in his 50s was found near the entrance of the underpass.

By 12 p.m. the rescue team had retrieved eight bodies.

The fire department expressed little hope of finding any survivors as the underpass had been completely submerged.

“There was little room for escape, or even an air pocket, due to the structure of the underpass,” said Suh Jeong-il, head of the Cheongju The West Fire Station.

An excavator stacks up sand on a temporary levee next to the Miho River on Friday. The levee on Saturday morning broke, flooding a nearby underpass where nine people were found dead as of Sunday. [JOONGANG ILOB]

The local government is being criticized for its late response even after learning that the levee next to the Miho River had broken.

“The accident at the Osong underpass in Cheongju, North Chungcheong, is a man-made disaster,” Jang Chan-gyo, 70, told the JoongAng Ilbo.

Jang, the former head of the nearby Gungpyeong-ri, had been checking out the temporary levee along the Miho River around 7:40 a.m. on Saturday, an hour before it failed.

The levee was to be used as a temporary passage between Cheongju and Osong, built by the National Agency for Administrative City Construction under the Land Ministry.

According to the North Chungcheong government, some 50 to 60 meters of the levee failed.

Jang said that when he was near the levee he saw some of the construction workers trying to raise the levee with an excavator.

“I hear someone warning that the levee won’t hold much long,” Jang said.

He said the pile of sand couldn’t hold that much water and that sandbags would have been more effective.

Jang said he had called the fire department at 7:51 a.m.

He said he saw the construction workers arguing with the fire department official, and around 8:30 a.m. the levee broke.

“They had already warned us about the heavy rain,” Jang said. “The accident happened because the temporary levee wasn’t properly made beforehand.”

BY SON SUNG-BAE, CHOI JONG-KWON AND LEE HO-JEONG [lee.hojeong@joongang.co.kr]