South Korea: 6 bodies pulled from flooded tunnel as heavy rains cause flash floods and landslides

Rescue workers take part in a search and rescue operation near an underpass that has been submerged by an flooded river caused by torrential rain in Cheongju, South Korea, July 16, 2023. REUTERS/Kim Hong-ji

SEOUL, South Korea — South Korean rescue workers pulled six bodies from vehicles trapped in a flooded tunnel, as days of heavy rain triggered flash floods and landslides and destroyed homes, leaving more than 30 people dead and forcing thousands to evacuate, officials said Sunday.

Nearly 400 rescue workers, including divers, were searching the tunnel in the central city of Cheongju, where around 15 vehicles, including a bus, got swept away in a flash flood Saturday evening, Seo Jeong-il, chief of the city’s fire department, said in a briefing.

Rescue workers take part in a search and rescue operation at an underpass that has been submerged by an flooded river caused by torrential rain in Cheongju, South Korea, July 16, 2023. REUTERS/Kim Hong-ji

Nine survivors were rescued from the tunnel, but the total number of passengers trapped in vehicles wasn’t immediately clear, Seo said.

South Korea has been pounded by heavy rains since July 9. The rainfall had forced nearly 6,000 people to evacuate and left 27,260 households without electricity in the past several days while flooding or destroying dozens of homes, the Ministry of the Interior and Safety said.

The bodies pulled from the vehicles in Cheongju weren’t immediately reflected in the ministry’s official death toll, which was 26 as of Sunday morning.

South Korea’s weather agency said some parts of the country will continue to receive heavy rain. President Yoon Suk Yeol, who was visiting Ukraine on Saturday, asked Prime Minister Han Duck-soo to mobilize all available resources to respond to the disaster, according to Yoon’s office.