Seoul City and 25 District Mayors Unite for Flood Damage Recovery Efforts

Council Chairman Lee Seongheon: "The Role of Local Administration in Rapid Recovery and Preventing Additional Damage" ... Urges Mobilization of Equipment and Personnel from 25 Autonomous Districts to Support Recovery in Affected Areas

The first meeting of the 8th Seoul Metropolitan City District Mayors' Association held on the 7th of last month

[Asia Economy Reporter Park Jong-il] Amid massive damage across Seoul due to the heaviest rainfall in 80 years, the Seoul Metropolitan Government and the heads of 25 autonomous districts are making every effort to overcome the damage.

The Seoul Council of District Mayors (Chairman Lee Seong-heon, Mayor of Seodaemun-gu) postponed the 171st regular meeting scheduled for the morning of the 9th and launched a rapid disaster response.

On the 10th, the council held an emergency video conference attended by Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon and the heads of all 25 autonomous districts to share damage status by district and agreed to mobilize all available equipment and personnel to support the swift recovery of the most severely affected districts.

They plan to hold a regular meeting on the morning of the 17th to review the damage assessment from the heavy rain and discuss follow-up measures.

Chairman Lee Seong-heon emphasized, “In unexpected disaster situations, the role of local administration is rapid recovery and prevention of further damage,” adding, “Active cooperation at the council level, such as providing waste disposal vehicles, is necessary to support neighboring districts suffering from displaced residents.”

The Seoul Metropolitan Government decided to urgently provide 30 billion KRW in special grants to the autonomous districts for damage recovery budgets. Support will be prioritized and differentiated based on the number of displaced residents and flooding incidents per district, with additional support planned after assessing the detailed damage scale and recovery costs.

Additionally, Seoul is cooperating with the Sudokwon Landfill Site Management Corporation to promptly process the large volume of waste generated by flood damage to minimize inconvenience to citizens.

Accordingly, since the 11th, flood waste under 500 tons per district has been immediately processed.

Mutual support among districts is also actively underway for damage recovery. The council, in cooperation with Seoul city, immediately identified available equipment and personnel by district and allocated them to heavily damaged areas for recovery efforts.

As a result, over 800 pumps including engine pumps and submersible pumps for restoring flooded houses and underground parking lots, about 50 special vehicles for waste disposal and recovery, and more than 70 public officials were additionally deployed to disaster areas to assist recovery work.

Military support has also been promptly mobilized. The Seoul Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters operates a liaison system with the Capital Defense Command, dispatching military personnel to heavily damaged districts to assist with transporting supplies to flooded houses, environmental cleanup, and restoring flooded underground parking lots.

According to the damage assessment by district as of 6 a.m. on August 12, Seoul recorded 3,571 cases of house and commercial building flooding, 41 cases of retaining wall and fence damage, 11 subway flooding incidents, 8 deaths, 1 missing person, and 3,409 displaced residents due to the heavy rain.

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