Here is video of what the record rainfall in South Korea looked like this week:
Record rainfall pounded most of the Seoul metropolitan region on Monday and Tuesday leaving nine people dead and seven others missing. The downpour flooded and destroyed roads and subway stations, triggered landslides, clogged underground water drainage systems, and forced the evacuations of people living in low-lying areas.
It was the highest amount of rainfall per hour witnessed in the capital region in 80 years, according to the Korea Meteorological Administration, the country’s central weather monitoring organization. Seoul’s Dongjak District was bombarded with the heaviest downpour in the city with 422 millimeters falling on Monday alone.
If anyone was wondering why President Yoon snubbed Nancy Pelosi during her visit to South Korea, here is the reason:
In this photo provided by South Korea Foreign Ministry, South Korean Foreign Minister Park Jin, left, shakes hands with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi prior to their meeting in Qingdao, China, Tuesday, Aug. 9, 2022. (South Korea Foreign Ministry via AP)
The top South Korean and Chinese diplomats pledged Thursday to develop closer relations and maintain stable industrial supply chains at a time of deepening rivalry between Beijing and Washington.
South Korea, a longtime U.S. ally, is struggling to strike a balance between Washington and the increasingly assertive foreign policy of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s government. U.S.-Chinese conflict over Taiwan has added to complications for governments that want amicable ties with both sides.
Foreign Ministers Park Jin and Wang Yi, in separate statements, called for the development of relations based on successful three-decade-old commercial ties. They were meeting in the eastern Chinese city of Qingdao.
Reports that Yoon had to be briefed about the floods in his home last night because he was trapped there and could not travel to the control center or visit the affected areas.
So many online comments are now asking: Why did you move out of the Blue House?
Defense chief visits U.S. base South Korea’s Defense Minister Lee Jong-sup (R) holds talks with Gen. Paul LaCamera, chief of the South Korea-U.S. Combined Forces Command, at Camp Humphreys in Pyeongtaek, 65 kilometers south of Seoul, on Aug. 8, 2022, in this photo provided by the defense ministry. Lee visited the U.S. military base to inspect the allies’ combined defense posture. (Yonhap)
At this point anyone living along the Imjim River should avoid it during heavy rain periods because the North Koreans are likely going to flood the river with no notification:
This file photo taken June 28, 2022, shows water gushing out of the floodgates of the Gunnam Dam on the Imjin River, which runs across the inter-Korean border in the South Korean border town of Yeoncheon, north of Seoul. The dam, built in 2010, was designed to deal with flash floods from North Korea. (Yonhap)
North Korea appears to be releasing water from a dam near the inter-Korean border without giving prior notice to the South, a South Korean government official said Monday, as the North is drenched by heavy downpours.
“As rain has fallen heavily in North Korea, the North is repeatedly opening and closing the floodgates of Hwanggang Dam,” the unification ministry official said. “It seems (the North) is adjusting the Hwanggang Dam’s water level based on the rainfall situation.”
The official said there was no prior notification from the North on the move.
Under an inter-Korean agreement signed in October 2009, the North is supposed to notify the South in advance of its plans to release dam water.
This is horrible that this family drowned in their own apartment:
President Yoon Suk-yeol visits a semi-basement apartment in southern Seoul on Aug. 9, 2022, where a flash flood the previous night killed a family of three. (Yonhap)
President Yoon Suk-yeol visited a semi-basement apartment in Seoul on Tuesday where a flash flood the previous night killed a family of three.
Yoon visited the apartment in southern Seoul after presiding over an emergency government meeting on the response to the heavy rains that have pounded the capital and central areas this week.
Eight people were reported killed and six missing in the country’s heaviest rainfall in 80 years.
According to the police, the family consisted of a woman in her 40s, her younger sister, and the sister’s teenage daughter.
Education Minister Park Soon-ae speaks during a press conference in Seoul on Aug. 8, 2022. (Yonhap)
Education Minister Park Soon-ae offered to resign Monday, just 34 days after taking office, amid criticism she mishandled key school policy proposals, such as lowering the elementary school entry age.
Park has been under pressure to step down after many teachers and parents protested strongly against lowering the school entry age by one year to 5. She has been criticized for announcing the proposal without sufficient preparations, such as collecting public opinion.
Her ministry had also unveiled a plan to abolish foreign language high schools, only to retract it days later.
Should President Yoon Suk-yeol accept the resignation, Park will be the first Cabinet minister to step down since Yoon took office in May.
Gwanghwamun Square opens after renovation People crowd around Gwanghwamun Square in central Seoul on Aug. 6, 2022, after it reopened to the public after a major renovation. (Yonhap)
I do not see this many Soldiers being sent to fight in Ukraine by North Korea, but it appears that the Russian propaganda apparatus is trying to will this into existence:
Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un ride an escalator following their talks at the Far Eastern Federal University campus on Russky island in the far-eastern Russian port of Vladivostok on April 25, 2019. Media reports in August speculated that North Korea was prepared to send a “100,000 strong army of volunteers” to fight in Ukraine alongside the Russians.
Korotchenko does not cite the source for his claim, which he made in a Thursday, August 4 broadcast, and there does not appear to be any public announcement by Moscow or Pyongyang to support it.
While some Russian outlets have repeated his claims after they were picked up by national and international news outlets, the only earlier mention of such “offer” and the “100,000” figure appears on report by the Russian news agency REGNUM, which the EU has accused of spreading “aggressive and biased propagandist narratives against Ukraine, and to promote a positive attitude to the annexation of Crimea and the actions of separatists in Donbas.”
The article, dated August 2, cites a Russian MP, who referenced North Korea’s “offer” to help in a speech in the Duma.
You can read more at the link, but North Korea has not publicly commented on any of these claims. North Korea definitely has the manpower, but this could be a huge embarrassment for the Kim regime if the Soldiers do not perform well or even worse start defecting. The Russian army has already lost massive prestige by being smacked around by an inferior Ukrainian military.
Part of Kim Jong-un’s deterrence strategy is the prestige of having a massive military that provides a legitimate threat to South Korea. Losing in Ukraine and having a bunch of Soldiers defect takes away from that deterrence factor.
