Heavy Rain Hampers Rescue Efforts in South Korea After Flooding

Heavy rains returned to South Korea on Monday, hampering search-and-recovery work after some of the worst flooding on record left 234 people dead and 91 missing.

A disaster agency official said he feared the death toll would rise as the weather office predicted Seoul and most northern areas of the country would receive between 3.5 and 9.75 inches of rain from late Monday until today.

“The damage will be enormous if rain pounds again as the weather bureau forecast,” the official said. “There is a possibility that unexpected landslides hit by torrential rains will increase the death toll.”

Floods and mudslides hit the southern part of the country more than a week ago, before heavy rain spread the havoc to Seoul and the north.

The disaster left more than 121,000 people homeless. They were being cared for at schools, churches and town halls, the National Disaster Prevention Countermeasures Headquarters said.

Meanwhile, seeking to stop the kind of flooding ravaging China, the government is spending $24.5 billion and resettling more than 1 million people to build Three Gorges Dam, the world’s largest hydroelectric project.

But critics of the dam in central Hubei province say the structure, to be completed in 2009, could possibly increase flooding and might share the blame for the current disaster.

Heavy, sustained downpours have caused the Yangtze River to swell to its highest level since 1954, and floods nationwide have killed more than 2,000 people and made millions more homeless.