Lightning kills migrant mother in rice paddy

A flooded rice paddy in Inje city in Gangwon Province. Korea Times file

By Ko Dong-hwan

Lightening over Chucheon city in Gangwon Province. Korea Times file

Lightning struck and killed a Thai migrant woman working at a rice paddy field during heavy rain in Yeonggwang city.

Chansuk Bualoi, 63, was hit by lightning on June 30 in Bongnam-ri village in the city's Yeomsan-myeon district in South Jeolla Province. She was planting rice with four other Thai nationals ― including her younger sibling ― and Han Sang-min, a Korean who owned the field and brought the workers from Gochang city for the day job worth 70,000 won ($63).

Han called the emergency rescue service, which took the woman to Yeong Gwang Medical Center. She started breathing again after receiving cardiopulmonary resuscitation but her brain remained unresponsive. She was then taken to Chusun University Hospital in Gwangju, 50 kilometers east of Yeonggwang, where she died.

Bualoi was re-planting rice seeds that had not been properly planted earlier. This can be done only when a paddy is filled with enough water, according to a police officer.

“She was a mother of eight children,” a Yeonggwang police station inspector told The Korea Times. “Her three sons had died. She had left three daughters in Thailand and brought two other daughters to Korea.”

Bualoi died on the day that typhoon Prapiroon began bringing heavy rain to Korea. According to the Ministry of the Interior and Safety on Tuesday, she was the only fatality. A woman from Boseong, South Jeolla Province, suffered a minor injury from a landslide and a man went missing in Gwangju.

Bualoi and her sibling had migrated to Korea with her through the Gwangju Immigration Office.

In June 2017, lightening killed a man in his 60s during heavy rain in Gyeonggi Province.