South Korea: 13 bodies recovered from flooded road tunnel after flash floods

Rescuers search for survivors along a road submerged by floodwaters leading to an underground tunnel in Cheongju, South Korea, Sunday, July 16, 2023. Days of heavy rain triggered flash floods and landslides and destroyed homes, leaving scores of people dead and forcing thousands to evacuate, officials said Sunday. (Kim Ju-hyung/Yonhap via AP)
Rescuers search for survivors along a road submerged by floodwaters leading to an underground tunnel in Cheongju, South Korea, Credit: AP

Rescuers have recovered 13 bodies from a flooded tunnel in South Korea where around 15 vehicles were trapped in muddy water.

For nine days now, the country has been hit with heavy rain, triggering flash floods, landslides and leaving at least 40 people dead and forcing more than 10,000 to evacuate, officials said.

Nearly 900 rescue workers, including divers, were searching the tunnel in the central city of Cheongju, where vehicles including a bus were swamped by a flash flood on Saturday evening, the city's fire chief said.

Photos and video from the scene showed rescue workers pumping brown water out of the tunnel as divers used rubber boats to move in and out of the area.

As of Monday afternoon, rescuers had pumped out most of the water from the tunnel and were searching the site on foot, a day after they used rubber boats to move and transport bodies on stretchers.

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Rescuers were not sure how many people were trapped in the submerged cars. Credit: AP

Workers were proceeding slowly with the work to prevent any victims or survivors from being swept out, said Yang Chan-mo, from the North Chungcheong provincial fire service.

Nine survivors were rescued from the tunnel and treated for injuries. The exact number of passengers trapped in vehicles wasn’t immediately clear, Seo Jeong-il, chief of the city’s fire department said in a briefing.

South Korea has been pounded by heavy rains since July 9, with the most severe damage concentrated in the country's central and southern regions.

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South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol looks around a flood damaged area in Yecheon. Credit: AP

Nearly 200 homes and around 150 roads were damaged or destroyed across the country, while 28,607 people were without electricity over the past several days, the Ministry of the Interior and Safety said in a report.

At least 34 people were being treated for injuries.

It comes at a time when extreme weather is affecting a number of countries across the world, with China, Japan, and the USA struggling with blistering and record-breaking temperatures.

Meanwhile more than 4,000 people were evacuated in La Palma, in the Canary Islands, as the scorching Cerberus heatwave continues to grip Europe.

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