South Chungcheong Province reels from 'once-in-a-century' rainfall

A driver awaits rescue atop a submerged car during heavy rainfall in Seosan, South Chungcheong Province, Thursday. Newsis

Torrential rainfall battered the Chungcheong region in central Korea, killing at least four people, inundating hundreds of homes and farms, triggering landslides and forcing more than 1,300 residents to evacuate.

Seosan, South Chungcheong Province, was deluged with more than 400 millimeters of rain over just half a day on Thursday, including 114.9 millimeters in a single hour. The national weather agency described the downpour as a “once-in-a-century” event.

Those regions, as well as other parts of the country, are forecast to receive more rainfall through Friday.

According to the Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA), Seosan saw 438.5 millimeters of rain early Thursday between midnight and 10 a.m., which is the largest daily amount since weather observation began in the city in January 1968. The previous record was 274.5 millimeters on Aug. 2, 1999.

The city received 114.9 millimeters of rain in a one-hour period starting from 1:46 a.m.

Streams feeding into the Geum River were among the hardest hit. In Yesan, all four monitoring stations along Sapgyo Creek issued flood warnings, signaling dangerously rising water levels.

As the ground became saturated and unstable, the Korea Forest Service raised the landslide threat to "grave" — its highest alert level — for neighboring regions including Daejeon, Sejong and North Chungcheong Province.

A cow shed is damaged by a landslide following heavy rainfall in Yesan, South Chungcheong Province, Thursday. Yonhap

In Osan, Gyeonggi Province, a driver was killed late Wednesday when a retaining wall collapsed near a road. Hours later, around 4 a.m. Thursday, another man was found dead in his car on a flooded road in Seosan. Around noon, a man was found dead in the basement of his home in Dangjin, South Chungcheong Province. At about 11:30 a.m. near Cheongji Stream in Seosan, emergency responders discovered another man in cardiac arrest, but efforts to resuscitate him were unsuccessful.

The heavy downpour extended to the southwestern city of Gwangju and the surrounding South Jeolla Province, where rainfall reached up to 86 millimeters per hour. Major roads and the Samgak subway station in the city were submerged, and authorities received at least 136 reports of flooding, including inundated roads and buildings.

Major transportation routes were severely disrupted. Mudslides and flooding cut off a number of highways, while KORAIL, the national railway operator, temporarily suspended sections of train service on the Janghang and Seohae lines for safety. Most regular rail service between Seoul and Daejeon came to a halt for several hours, though KTX high-speed trains continued to operate.

The rain also halted 34 passenger ferry routes involving 39 vessels, including the Mokpo-Hongdo route.

Twenty-one national parks and 69 riverside parking lots were closed off for safety.

Roads are covered with rocks and loosened soil from a landslide caused by heavy rainfall in Yesan, South Chungcheong Province, Thursday. Yonhap

According to the Ministry of Education, 667 schools nationwide closed or shortened their hours due to the heavy rain.

Evacuation orders led more than 1,382 residents in the region to seek shelter at local community centers and schools.

In response, the Ministry of the Interior and Safety raised its emergency alert level for heavy rainfall across the southern Gyeonggi and entire Chungcheong regions. The Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters also escalated its operational status from Level 1 to Level 3 out of 4, mobilizing more emergency resources.

Villages and farms are flooded amid heavy rainfall in Yesan, South Chungcheong Province, Thursday. Yonhap

The national heavy rain risk alert was raised from "warning" to "severe," the highest level of the four-tier system, urging increased vigilance as more rainfall was forecast throughout the day. The weather agency projected an additional 50 to 150 millimeters through Saturday, with some areas exceeding 180 millimeters.

The KMA forecast that rainfall would ease temporarily during daytime hours on Friday but would intensify again from Friday evening through Saturday morning. Up to 300 millimeters of additional rain was forecast for the Chungcheong and southern Gyeonggi regions.

According to the KMA, the severe rainfall was caused by a band of compressed storm clouds, triggered when cold, dry air that had lingered north of the Korean Peninsula shifted slightly east and acted like a high-pressure system.