Umyeon landslide
victims to seek legal action
Residents of mountainside villages hit by
multiple landslides from Mount Umyeon may sue local
authorities, claiming that their neglect led to the calamity which claimed 18
lives.
Kwak Chang-ho, who represents tenants of Raemian Art Hill Apartment in Bangbae-dong,
in Seoul’s southern ward of Seocho, said Sunday
that he will work to form an emergency committee of tenants in order to prepare
for legal action.
“We will prove that the landslides could have been prevented, unlike what
the Seocho Ward Office and Seoul City Government
say,” he said.
Three residents of the apartment died, after
torrential rains sent the wall of mud and water from Mount Umyeon
into nearby villages. They reached three stories high on some buildings.
He said that the authorities did not take due measures to stave off landslides
even though concerns have persistently been raised over the possibility of
earth falls near it.
A resident of another landslide-hit village Jeonwon
also said that neighbors are talking about filing a damages suit against the
authorities.
“I believe that the disaster was predictable to some degree. Public
officials did nothing to prevent it, which was the reason why we now suffer damages
in human lives and financial values,” she said.
In the village of Jeonwon, six died.
Controversy has flared last week after it was revealed that the Korea Forest
Service sent an automatic text message to the Seocho
Ward Office, informing the office of the possibility of a landslide and urging
it to warn its citizens.
Seocho Ward, where the mountain and landslide-hit
villages are located, allegedly ignored the message. It denies receiving any
such message.
According to the national forest authority, Mount Umyeon
was classified as the highest risk area for a landslide when the heaviest
downpour in a century battered Seoul and central regions.
On the day of the landslides, other ward offices of Seoul, including
neighboring Gangnam, issued a landslide advisory, or
a warning. Seocho issued neither.
A mini-earthfall occurred in Mount Umyeon last September, which should have provided a chance
for the ward officials to seek precautionary measures, the residents said.
“Last September, 200 millimeters of rain pummeled the mountain, causing
earth, sand and rocks to fall from it. As it is made, in large part, of earth
(rather than rocks), the possibility of landslides was high,” an official
at Seoul Metropolitan Government said, declining to be named.
The Source: The Korea Herald