SEOUL, August 17 (AJP) - Record rainfall along South Korea's southern coast killed one person and injured four on Monday, and the island city of Geoje logged the heaviest single day of rain since observations began there in 1972.
Geoje recorded 577.4 millimeters between midnight and 1 p.m., the Korea Meteorological Administration said. Among the 97 surface stations whose records the agency ranks, only two days have produced more, both on Aug. 31, 2002, when Typhoon Rusa dropped 870.5 millimeters on Gangneung and 712.5 millimeters on Daegwallyeong.
Geoje took 124.5 millimeters in a single hour, and nearby Tongyeong took 97.4 millimeters, both hourly records. Tongyeong also set a daily record of 409.7 millimeters. The weather agency put the hourly intensity at a level expected once every 200 years in Geoje and once every 100 years in Tongyeong.
The rain came from the remnant of Typhoon Dolphin, which weakened well before reaching the Korean Peninsula.
At about 4:42 a.m., a landslide swept soil onto the lower floors of an apartment building in Geoje's Okpo-dong, killing one resident and injuring two others. On Gonri Island in Tongyeong, a landslide buried a house and a resident trapped from the waist down was rescued and taken to hospital. In Ulsan, a taxi passenger was hurt when the driver braked to avoid a fallen roadside tree.
Damage reports reached 838 nationwide as of 10 a.m., the Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters said. A total of 159 people from 116 households evacuated in Busan and South Gyeongsang Province, and 108 had not returned home.
The National Fire Agency said it had taken 1,947 calls from Geoje and Tongyeong and rescued 136 people.
Power was cut to 2,030 households and 25 school facilities were damaged, 12 of them flooded. More than 20 roads in Geoje were closed at one point and most city bus services stopped running. Hanwha Ocean and Samsung Heavy Industries, which operate shipyards in Geoje, told workers not to travel in because roads around the yards were impassable.
The government approved 3 billion won ($2.2 million) in special disaster management grants and 40 million won ($29,000) for relief operations.
"Extremely heavy rain of more than 800 millimeters has fallen on the Geoje area since the 15th," Interior and Safety Minister Yoon Ho-jung said. "The rain band is moving toward Busan, Ulsan and other neighboring areas and continues to produce rain, which makes this a very serious situation."
The rain eased a drought in South Gyeongsang Province. Average storage at agricultural reservoirs across the province's 18 cities and counties rose to 43.1 percent as of 2 p.m. from 32.2 percent on Aug. 14, and Geoje's reservoirs climbed from 28.7 percent to 73.6 percent. Five counties were at the severe drought level on Aug. 14. By Monday afternoon only Miryang remained there.
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