Landslides, Floods Kill at Least 14 as South Korea Sees Record Rainfalls

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The death toll from heavy downpours in South Korea over the past five days climbed to 14, authorities said on Sunday, July 20, 2025. This comes amid rising concerns of more casualties, with 12 people missing since the disaster began.

Two people died and four others went missing in the tourist city of Gapyeong on Sunday after landslides hit houses and floods swept away vehicles, citing government officials as reported by Aljazeera and ABC News.

A woman in her 70s died when her home collapsed due to a landslide, while the body of a man in his 40s was found near a bridge after drowning, according to South Korea's official news agency, Yonhap.

At the beginning of last week, three people were found dead inside a submerged car, and one person also died after a retaining wall collapsed in Osan, just south of Seoul, during heavy rains.

Nearly 170 mm of rainfall was recorded in Gyeonggi Province, about 70 kilometers east of Seoul, on Sunday morning.

However, most of the deaths occurred in the southern Sancheong area, which has been drenched with nearly 800 mm of rain since Wednesday.

Two bodies were found there on Sunday morning during search and rescue operations. This adds to the death toll in the rural area, inhabited by 33,000 people, to eight, with six people remain missing.

Adjacent Hapcheon County received 699 mm of rainfall, while nearby Hadong County received 621.5 mm of rainfall.

Two of the 12 reported missing persons were from the city of Gwangju in the southwest, Yonhap said.

Yonhap also quoted authorities as saying they have recorded 1,920 cases of flooded roads, landslides, and destruction of public facilities, as well as 2,234 other cases of damage to private property, such as buildings and agricultural land.

A total of 12,921 people have been evacuated in 14 major cities and provinces, according to Yonhap. In some areas, livestock are submerged up to their necks amid rising floods.

Rain stopped in most parts of South Korea on Sunday, and heavy rain warnings have been lifted nationwide, ministry officials said.

Rain is likely to be followed by a heatwave, government weather forecasters said.

South Korea usually experiences monsoon rains in July and is usually well-prepared. However, this week, the southern region of the country was hit by extremely heavy rains, with the heaviest hourly rainfall on record, according to official weather data.

Scientists say that climate change has made extreme weather events more frequent and intense worldwide. In 2022, South Korea experienced record-breaking heavy rains and floods, which claimed at least 11 lives.

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