SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Flights and trains resumed and power was mostly restored Friday after a tropical storm blew through South Korea, which was preparing a pop concert for 40,000 Scouts whose global Jamboree was disrupted by the weather.
Much of Khanun’s damage was concentrated in the country’s southern and eastern regions, where several cities and towns saw 30 to 40 centimeters (12 to 16 inches) of rain. Dozens of houses and buildings were damaged, roads were closed and at least one death was reported.
Khanun had weakened by the time it arrived in the densely populated Seoul metropolitan area Thursday night, and it blew into North Korea early Friday as a tropical depression.
South Korean officials lifted a nationwide alert over the storm and were channeling much of their administrative resources into throwing a K-pop concert at a Seoul soccer stadium Friday evening as the closing event of the World Scout Jamboree.
The event had been held at a coastal campsite before Khanun forced a mass relocation efforts to house the Scouts in university dormitories, government and corporate training centers and hotels in the greater Seoul region and nearby areas.
No major storm damage has been reported in Seoul, where rain was continuing through the morning. In the nearby port city of Incheon, workers responded to flooded homes and collapsed walls.
In the southern inland city of Daegu, a 67-year-old man found near a bloated stream was later pronounced dead and workers were still searching for another person who was swept into a stream while using a wheelchair.
In Gangwon province, a mountainous region on the east coast that was drenched with some of Khanun’s heaviest rain, emergency workers in the seaside cities of Gangneung and Sokcho waded across rivers of brown, thigh-high water covering what used to be streets.
Nearly 16,000 people, mostly in southern regions, had been forced to evacuate from the storm but around 9,700 have returned home as of Friday, according to the Ministry of the Interior and Safety.
The storm damaged or destroyed at least 64 roads and damaged around 50 homes and buildings. Power was restored to most of the 46,484 homes that lost electricity, the ministry said.
Authorities were continuing to restrict access to nearly 700 motorways as rain continued to fall, but there weren’t any cancellations in commercial flights scheduled for Friday.
North Korea’s state media had no immediate reports about damage caused by the storm. State media has previously described nationwide efforts to strengthen the monitoring of roads, railways, bridges and coastlines, and to employ measures to protect factory machines and crops.
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