Typhoon Hinnamnor smashes into South Korea, killing 10, leaving 66,000 homes without power and forcing thousands to flee

The storm made landfall in the country’s southern regions on Tuesday morning, unleashing heavy rains and winds of up to 155km/h
It killed 10 people, including seven in hard-hit port city Pohang who drowned in the submerged underground car park of an apartment complex

South Korea

Associated Pressin Seoul

Published: 10:38am, 6 Sep 2022

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The most powerful typhoon to hit South Korea in years battered its southern region on Tuesday, leaving 10 people dead after dumping almost a metre (3 feet) of rain, destroying roads and felling power lines, leaving 66,000 homes without electricity as thousands of people fled to safer ground.

Typhoon Hinnamnor grazed the resort island of Jeju and made landfall near the mainland port of Busan in the morning and was moving northeast towards the sea with winds of up to 144 kilometres (89 miles) per hour. It is on track to move closer to eastern China later in the week, after ferry services in eastern China and flights in Japan were suspended in previous days.

The death toll rose to 10, authorities said on Wednesday. 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 car park of an apartment complex, the Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters said.

Debris from a damaged hospital caused by Typhoon Hinnamnor is seen on a street in Ulsan, South Korea, on Tuesday. Photo: Yonhap via AP

Officials had put the nation on alert about potential damage from flooding, landslides and tidal waves unleashed by Hinnamnor, which came just weeks after heavy rains in the region around the capital Seoul caused flooding that killed at least 14 people.

The storm dumped more than 94 centimetres (37 inches) of rain in central Jeju since Sunday, where winds peaked at 155km/h (96mph).

A 25-year-old man was missing after falling into a rain-swollen stream in the southern city of Ulsan, according to the Ministry of the Interior and Safety, which didn’t immediately report more casualties. Fires were reported at a major steel plant operated by POSCO in the southern city of Pohang, but it wasn’t immediately clear whether they were caused by the storm.

‘We have to minimise casualties’: South Korea braces for Super Typhoon Hinnamnor

The Safety Ministry said more than 3,400 people in the southern regions were forced to evacuate from their homes because of safety concerns and that officials were advising or ordering 14,000 more people to evacuate. More than 66,000 homes nationwide suffered power outages, Yonhap reported. At least five buildings were flooded or destroyed, and scores of roads were damaged.

More than 600 schools were closed or converted to online classes. More than 250 flights and 70 ferry services were grounded while more than 66,000 fishing boats evacuated to ports. Workers as of 6am managed to restore electricity to 2,795 of the 20,334 households that had their power knocked out.

A South Korean presidential official, who spoke on condition of anonymity during a background briefing, said officials were investigating the cause of the fires at POSCO’s Pohang plant, where firefighters were working to extinguish flames that damaged at least three facilities at the complex.

A storm surge caused by Typhoon Hinnamnor is seen in Pohang on Tuesday. Photo: Yonhap via Reuters

Lim Yoon-sook, an official from the North Gyeongsang province fire department, said the flames destroyed a building housing electricity equipment and were continuing to burn through a separate office building, although workers were close to extinguishing a smaller fire at a cokes factory.

In North Korea, state media reported “all-out efforts” to minimise damage from flooding and landslides. The Korean Central News Agency reported that supreme leader Kim Jong-un during government meetings had issued unspecified “detailed tasks” to improve the country’s disaster response capacity but it didn’t elaborate on the plans.

North Korea sustained serious damage from heavy rains and floods in 2020 that destroyed buildings, roads and crops, shocking the country’s already-crippled economy.

The typhoon earlier passed Japan’s southwestern main island of Kyushu, causing widespread power outages and transport disruptions, with one man in his 70s in Saga Prefecture believed to have died after falling from a roof while attempting to stormproof it, according to authorities.

Additional reporting by Bloomberg, Kyodo, Agence France-Presse

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