Mayor Lee Yong-seop Requests Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun to Declare Gwangju a Special Disaster Area

"Promise to Designate and Support Maximum Recovery if Criteria Are Met"

Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun and Mayor Lee Yong-seop of Gwangju Metropolitan City visited the Yeongsangang Flood Control Office in Seo-gu on the morning of the 9th. After inspecting the flood management situation, they left the control office. On this day, Mayor Lee Yong-seop requested Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun to declare the Gwangju area, which suffered significant damage from the heavy rain, as a special disaster zone. Photo by Gwangju Metropolitan City

[Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Park Seon-gang] Lee Yong-seop, Mayor of Gwangju Metropolitan City, requested the government to designate the Gwangju area, which suffered massive property damage due to the heavy rain on the 7th and 8th, as a special disaster zone.

On the morning of the 9th, Mayor Lee met with Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun, who visited Gwangju to inspect the damage caused by the heavy rain at the Yeongsangang Flood Control Office in Seo-gu, and said, “This heavy rain caused significant damage to farmland, agricultural infrastructure, houses, commercial buildings, and public facilities,” requesting the designation of a special disaster zone.

He added, “In Gwangju, major urban roads were submerged, flooding houses and commercial buildings as well, causing continuous damage to small business owners. The flooding of Gwangjucheon Stream and small rural streams, as well as the collapse of small reservoir embankments, led to the inundation of much farmland and vinyl greenhouses, resulting in great losses.”

He further stated, “Over the past two days, Gwangju experienced record-breaking total rainfall and hourly intense rainfall, causing severe damage. Citizens are earnestly hoping for the designation as a special disaster zone so that national funds can be invested in restoring public and private facilities.”

In response, Prime Minister Chung said, “If the criteria are met, special disaster zones will naturally be designated to ensure proper restoration with maximum support. We will try to make swift designations and restorations based on local judgments and criteria whenever possible.”

He continued, “Permanent restoration is important to prevent the recurrence of the same disaster,” and added, “The central and local governments should cooperate to overcome the disaster well.”

Meanwhile, due to the heavy rain in the Gwangju area over the two days from the 8th to the 9th, as of the morning of the 9th, one person has died, 267 households totaling 400 people have been displaced, and there has been extensive property damage including the collapse of public facilities, agricultural infrastructure, roads, rivers, reservoir dams, and flooding of commercial buildings and houses.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.