SEOUL: The death toll from Typhoon Hinnamnor rose to 10 in South Korea, authorities said on Wednesday, after the storm battered the southern coast with huge waves and heavy rain this week.
The typhoon, one of the most powerful to hit the country in decades, flooded streets and buildings as it passed through on Monday and Tuesday.
In the southeastern port city of Pohang — one of the hardest-hit areas — seven bodies and two survivors were pulled out of the submerged underground parking lot of an apartment complex, the Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters said.
The nine were trapped after they went into the parking lot to move their cars during the heavy downpours, according to local media reports.
Search and rescue operations continued on Wednesday, and authorities said two people were still missing.
One other death was confirmed in Pohang on Wednesday, and another in Gyeongju where a person was killed when a home was buried in a landslide, authorities said.
The nine fatalities follow the death of a woman in her 70s who died in Pohang after being swept away by floodwaters on Tuesday.
Hinnamnor forced more than 4,700 people to flee their homes for safety, and it destroyed around 12,000 homes and buildings.
Nearly 90,000 households lost power nationwide as the storm hit, but supply had been restored to most of them by Wednesday morning, authorities said.
Before the typhoon made landfall, South Korean authorities closed more than 600 schools nationwide as a precaution and local airlines cancelled some 250 domestic flights.
Meanwhile, two South Koreans have been rescued after being trapped in a submerged underground parking garage for more than 12 hours in a city battered by a powerful typhoon, authorities said on Wednesday.
Typhoon Hinnamnor tore through South Korea’s southern industrial hubs this week, leaving at least 10 people dead, 2 missing and thousands displaced.
Residents cheered and clapped as rescue workers carried the survivors, a man in his 30s and a woman in her 50s, on stretchers out of the flooded underground garage at an apartment complex in the southern city of Pohang.
The man was found alive clinging to pipes, while the woman had climbed atop construction panels, both able to breathe because of a pocket of air in the flooded underground space, fire official Park Chi-min told a televised briefing.
The two were now in a stable condition, while six other people were found dead inside the garage, he said.
More than 170 members of local fire stations, the military and the coast guard joined forces in the rescue efforts, wading through metres of muddy water to find survivors, he said.
President Yoon Suk-yeol offered condolences to the bereaved families and promised support for all rescue operations and typhoon victims. Yoon called for designating Pohang as a special disaster zone eligible for tax breaks and government subsidies, and travelled to the area later on Wednesday. – AFP/Reuters
