Seoul has vowed to pull some of the city’s poorest families out of their underground and semi-underground homes after 13 people died in floods caused by record rains this week, prompting public horror and calls for government accountability.
The deaths, which included a family who drowned after being trapped underground, have prompted the South Korean capital to end people living in “banjiha” houses, the often cramped and dingy basements that made famous by the movie “Parasite”.
The family of three – a woman in her 40s with Down syndrome, her sister and the sister’s 13-year-old daughter – died after water pressure prevented them from opening the door of their flooded home in Gwanak district. , in the south of Seoul.
On Monday night, torrential rains, the city’s heaviest in more than 100 years, caused severe flooding in many low-lying neighborhoods south of the Han River, washing away cars and forcing hundreds to evacuate.
The family lived in a banjiha, a semi-subterranean apartment, usually several steps below street level. In Seoul’s notoriously expensive real estate market, these apartments are some of the most affordable options available, meaning they are mostly inhabited by young people and people with low incomes.
Often small, dark and prone to mold during the humid summer, banji have gained worldwide notoriety following the release of Bong Joon-ho’s 2019 Oscar-winning film “Parasite,” which follows one family’s desperate attempt fictitious for escaping poverty. Since then, the houses have come to represent rampant inequality in one of the world’s richest cities.
For years, there have been mounting calls for the government to provide more affordable housing, improve living conditions in the banjihas, or phase them out, which officials vowed to do after public outcry over the government’s handling of the crisis. of President Yoon Suk Yeol.
“In future, in Seoul, the use of basements and semi-basements (banjihas) for residential purposes will not be allowed,” the Seoul city government said in a statement on Wednesday.
But experts say the government’s promise misses the bigger problems that linger beyond the basement walls, such as skyrocketing costs of living forcing the most vulnerable to seek refuge in substandard housing. susceptible to flooding and heat, some of the worst effects of climate change.
bunkers for boom
Banjihas were first built in the 1970s to serve as bunkers amid rising tensions with North Korea, said Choi Eun-yeong, executive director of the Korea Environment and Cities Research Center.
As Seoul modernized in the following decade, attracting immigrants from rural regions, shrinking space led the government to allow residential use of the basements, even though “they were not built for residential purposes, but for bomb shelters.” , boiler rooms or warehouses”. Choy said.
Banjihas have long been plagued with problems like poor ventilation and drainage, water leaks, lack of easy escape routes, insect infestation, and exposure to bacteria. But its low price is a big draw as Seoul becomes more unaffordable, especially for young people facing stagnant wages, rising rents and a saturated job market.
The median price of an apartment in Seoul has more than doubled in the past five years, reaching 1.26 billion won ($963,000) in January this year, making it less affordable relative to income than New York. , Tokyo and Singapore.
Safety concerns regarding the banjihas came to the fore when severe flooding in 2010 and 2011 left dozens dead. In 2012, the government implemented new laws that prohibited banjiha apartments in “habitually flooded areas”.
But the reform attempt fell short, with an additional 40,000 banjihas built after the law was passed, according to a press release from city authorities.
Officials again promised to investigate the problem after “Parasite” highlighted banjihas, but were soon sidetracked by the COVID-19 pandemic, Choi said.
As of 2020, more than 200,000 banjiha apartments remained in central Seoul, accounting for about 5% of all households, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.
Along with its failure to improve housing, the city government came under fire this year after cutting its annual budget for flood control and water resources management by more than 15% to 17.6 billion won (13.5 millions of dollars).
drowned family
The family who died in Gwanak was unable to escape from their apartment due to water pooling outside their door, said Choi Tae-young, head of the Seoul Metropolitan Fire and Disaster Headquarters.
The fire and rescue chief accompanied President Yoon to the scene of the deaths on Tuesday, where they inspected the building and interviewed some of its residents. The photos show the president squatting in the street, looking through the ground-level window at the still-flooded basement apartment.
“I don’t know why people here didn’t evacuate ahead of time,” Yoon said during the inspection, a comment that has since been widely criticized online.
“The water came in an instant,” one resident replied.
“It took less than 10 or 15 minutes (for the water to rise),” said another resident, adding that the victims “lived very, very difficult lives.”
In its statement on Wednesday, the Seoul city government said it would phase out basements and banjiha apartments “so that they cannot be inhabited by people, regardless of regular flooding or flood-prone areas.”
Banjihas are “a type of backward housing that threatens vulnerable housing in all aspects, including security and residential environment, and must now be removed,” said Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon.
The phase-out process will include a 10- to 20-year “grace period” for existing banjihas with building permits, and tenants will be helped to move into public rental housing or receive housing vouchers, the government said in a statement. . Once the banjihas have been cleaned, they will be converted to non-residential use, he added.
Choi Eun-yeong, the urban environment researcher, expressed skepticism about the government’s purported commitment to remove the banjihas, arguing that the proposal was too ambitious and lacked concrete details, such as details on the timeline or compensation figures.
“In fact, I think there is a very good chance that it will just be a declaration and not be implemented,” he said, pointing to the government’s various promises, and limited success, over the years.
The poorest are the most affected
The rain has now subsided in Seoul, but experts warn that this type of extreme and unpredictable weather will become more frequent and intense due to climate change.
The climate crisis is “raising the temperature of the land and the ocean, which means that the amount of water vapor that the air can hold is increasing,” said Park Jung-min, deputy director of the press office of the Korea Meteorological Administration. “It depends on the weather, where this bag of water will spill.”
As is often the case, it seems likely that the poorest will be among the hardest hit.
“Those who have difficulty living and those who are physically ill will be more vulnerable to natural disasters,” President Yoon said Wednesday. “Only when they are safe, the Republic of Korea is safe.”
Similar problems have occurred in other countries in recent years; in parts of India, monsoon floods have repeatedly destroyed slums; In Bangladesh, many people have migrated from villages to urban areas to escape increasingly frequent floods.
And in the United States, research has found that Black, Latino and low-income families are more likely to live in flood-prone areas.
In addition to chronic displacement and disruption to livelihoods, the projected increase in rainfall in Asia could lead to a number of health hazards, including increased risk of diarrheal diseases, dengue fever and malaria, a further blow to already impoverished families. without access to medical care or the means to travel.
Meanwhile, floods and droughts could cause rural poverty and increase food costs, according to the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
In Seoul, banjiha residents face the double danger of flooding and heat waves, Choi Eun-yeong said.
“The changes caused by the climate crisis are almost catastrophic, especially for the most vulnerable, because they do not have adequate housing to respond to those conditions,” he said.