Typhoon Bolaven Korea
Typhoon Bolaven hit the west coast of South Korea, Tuesday (28/8) with winds up to 170 km / h. Causing two Chinese fishing boats overturned, killing five people in the sea and 10 people missing. A total of 18 people were rescued by fishermen rescuers coast of South Korea.
The storm stopped the flow of electricity to nearly 200,000 homes in South Korea, resulting in a number of poles uprooted but the damage was more severe as feared did not happen.
All schools in the city of Seoul was closed, but the financial markets, industrial and energy installations and government offices to operate as usual.
Weather forecasters billed Typhoon Bolaven as the worst storm to hit the Korean peninsula in ten years. Though deadly, it didn’t quite live up to the hype.
By Tuesday evening, the damage total in South Korea looked like this: four dead, two injured, 83 people evacuated from their homes, power outages experienced by about 1.7 million households and various other property damage.
The deaths occurred in the southwestern part of the country as the storm moved from southeast to northwest. A 48-year-old security guard in Wanju County, North Jeolla, was killed when he was struck by a metal container. A 50-year-old cargo truck driver was struck and killed by a tree after he’d gotten out of his truck to move another tree that was blocking the road. In Gwangju, a woman was buried in rubble when a building collapsed and, in Seocheon, South Chungcheong Province, a woman was killed when she fell from a roof in strong wind.
The storm is also blamed for the capsizing of two Chinese fishing vessels off Jeju Island Monday night, leading to the deaths of at least five crew members. Ten others were missing by late Tuesday afternoon and another 18 had been rescued or swam to shore.
The typhoon prompted the closure of all of South Korea’s domestic airports. Elementary and secondary schools were also closed across the country.The eye of the storm moved passed the northwest coastal city of Incheon around mid-afternoon.
The Korea Meteorological Administration reported that Seoul received 8.5 millimeters of rain by late afternoon. Forecasters were expecting 5 to 20 millimeters of rain in the capital city.
The storm was so big that North Korea’s state news agency provided what counts for it as real-time coverage. A dispatch issued around 2 p.m. led with: “All areas of Korea except Ryanggang Province and North Hamgyong Province are being affected by typhoon-15.” At 7 p.m., a new dispatch said: “Typhoon-15 has reached most areas of Korea.”
