South Korea is flooding.

July 27, 2011 7:37 AM

It's pouring, flooding, and landsliding here in South Korea. Local Mefites, y'all ok? I'm on vacation this week, anyone need any help cleaning/recovering?
posted by nile_red to MetaFilter-Related at 7:37 AM (22 comments total)

Oh great. Guess where my aunt just got on a plane to yesterday.

Take care of yourselves, folks!
posted by Eideteker at 8:52 AM on July 27, 2011

Katmandu?
posted by edgeways at 9:37 AM on July 27, 2011 [1 favorite]

Was it Ghostbusters 2?
posted by Deathalicious at 11:18 AM on July 27, 2011

Jesus Christ, 32 people died in SK because of floods and landslides
posted by KokuRyu at 11:46 AM on July 27, 2011 [1 favorite]

Whoah, whoah, that looks bad. We have a few people there: stavrosthewonderchicken, kathrynm, Joseph Gurl, nile_red, bardic, suedehead, ed\26h, holterbarbour, photo guy, Knigel, and FakePalindrome, that I can see from locations. I hope they are all okay! :(
posted by taz at 11:46 AM on July 27, 2011

For folks living in the cities it's not a particularly dangerous situation. The deaths so far have been the result of mudslides in the mountains among people at summer camps and tourist resorts.

It is very much not a good time to be on vacation.
posted by Winnemac at 12:58 PM on July 27, 2011

Actually, I take that back. Friend just told me that some apartment building near a mountain got hammered in Seoul. Yike. Best to stay away from the hills for a while.
posted by Winnemac at 1:01 PM on July 27, 2011

Do realize that it is pretty much all hills over here. Couple of mountains inside the city itself. I can see the Songpa reservoir-canal-doohickey (dunno the term in English) from my apartment and it is about triple the normal level and all murky. The Han is damn close to overflowing its banks. Worst flood in 30 years, the news says. My Korean teacher has been at Seoul National for 15 years and this is actually the first time they have had to close the school partially because of rain, which is pretty epic given the priorities that Korean people have. I almost missed a bus because there was so much water yesterday that they stopped running the busses and for a little while yesterday the subway trains did not stop at some stops because of flooding, which is pretty damn unprecedented.
posted by curuinor at 2:04 PM on July 27, 2011

Thanks for the info, curuinor... are you safe?
posted by taz at 2:09 PM on July 27, 2011

Oh, by the way by "city" I mean Seoul.
posted by curuinor at 2:10 PM on July 27, 2011

36th floor apartment, baby. Only way I will be affected is if the school shuts down or if they cut the electricity like they did in 강남(Gangnam).
posted by curuinor at 2:15 PM on July 27, 2011

Or if the Han floods in earnest or If I die on the way to university or if Godzilla rises from the sea and gets the wrong country.
posted by curuinor at 2:17 PM on July 27, 2011 [1 favorite]

I hope none of those things occur! :)
posted by taz at 2:21 PM on July 27, 2011 [1 favorite]

hope all our SK Mefites are doing okay
posted by Julnyes at 2:22 PM on July 27, 2011

I hope none of those things occur! :)
posted by taz

Me too, though would it be bad if I said that the Godzilla thing would be kinda cool?

Stay safe everyone!
posted by 1000monkeys at 2:41 PM on July 27, 2011

Hang in there South Korea!
posted by gomichild at 2:43 PM on July 27, 2011

Yeah, I'm on the 8th floor, and my neighborhood is fine, although the apt I used to live in is flooded now...I'm suddenly very glad I switched jobs.
posted by nile_red at 4:23 PM on July 27, 2011 [2 favorites]

I am in the southeast. It has been sunny the past few days, and there are blue skies out my window now as I type. But the city's name is Gwangyang, which is derived from the two Hanja characters meaning 'bright' and 'shining', so there you go.

Seoul's about 400 of your strange foreign 'miles' from me, and, yeah, it's getting a proper ass-kicking, as are S Gyeongsang and Gangwon Provinces over to the west. The video of it on TV is pretty spectacular.

This happens with clockwork regularity every rainy season, though, just rarely to Seoul itself. (Seoul and its conurbation contain literally 50% of the 50 million people here). Floods happen, people (and the media) forget that it happened the same way a year ago, and there is much wailing and tearing of hair.

That said, this year has been worse than usual, and with Seoul in the sights of the storms, a lot more people (and a lot more rich and powerful people) have been affected.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 5:47 PM on July 27, 2011 [3 favorites]

Thanks for the updates, non-jokey people.
posted by Eideteker at 8:12 PM on July 27, 2011

Daegu is hot because Daegu is always hot in the summer. I wish we could take some of that rain away from Seoul to cool down.

Oh, and the military is warning that some landmines may have washed into Seoul.

좋지 않아요 :(
posted by bardic at 11:56 PM on July 27, 2011

So very glad to hear from you, nile_red, stav, and bardic!

Landmines in Seoul... fuck.
posted by taz at 2:38 AM on July 28, 2011

O_O I had not heard about the landmines.
posted by nile_red at 5:17 AM on July 28, 2011