Volunteers in S. Korea help rain-hammered regions recover
- 4 years ago
장마 끝났지만 농가 복구 및 이동식 세탁 봉사 이주째 이어져
After a record-long monsoon season swept South Korea, many rural families are struggling to repair their damaged properties.
To help these people, thousands of volunteers are joining in recovery works across the country, doing laundry and restoring the farmland.
Our Lee Kyung-eun went to see some of them.
Torrential rain slammed Geumsan County in Chungcheongnam-do Province this summer... and farmer Shin Cheon-soo is still dealing with its impact.
Electronic devices are broken, trash is piled up, and crops are coated with mud from a landslide.
With just too much recovery work to do, he has no time to take care of himself.
"I work sleeping only five hours each day. But I am still running out of time. I don't have time to wash my clothes, that's not the priority at the moment."
For many people like him, volunteers from Korea Red Cross have been washing their clothes,...using this moving laundry car.
The car is located in the sports center in the town, and each morning, people bring in bags of laundry.
Once the clothes are dried, the volunteers fold them, put them in a clean bag and call people to pick them up.
During the past 10 days, the laundry has come in non-stop.
"The blanket was extremely heavy due to the rain, and there was even more mud inside. They also bring winter clothes that were stacked up in the wardrobe."
In the meantime, other volunteers have been working to restore the rain-hammered ginseng fields.
"Today, they are pulling down the covers that were used to protect ginseng. This is the last step before preparing the land for new crops."
It was hard to get to this stage, as the round-the-clock rain hindered them from digging up the rotten ginseng.
Now the rain has stopped, but they are fighting the heat.
"The biggest problem is the extreme heat. But if you look at the devastation, you forget about the heat."
Volunteers like these are working across the country,.. but the enormous amount of damage means there's still a lot of recovery work left to do.
Lee Kyung-eun, Arirang News, Geumsan.
After a record-long monsoon season swept South Korea, many rural families are struggling to repair their damaged properties.
To help these people, thousands of volunteers are joining in recovery works across the country, doing laundry and restoring the farmland.
Our Lee Kyung-eun went to see some of them.
Torrential rain slammed Geumsan County in Chungcheongnam-do Province this summer... and farmer Shin Cheon-soo is still dealing with its impact.
Electronic devices are broken, trash is piled up, and crops are coated with mud from a landslide.
With just too much recovery work to do, he has no time to take care of himself.
"I work sleeping only five hours each day. But I am still running out of time. I don't have time to wash my clothes, that's not the priority at the moment."
For many people like him, volunteers from Korea Red Cross have been washing their clothes,...using this moving laundry car.
The car is located in the sports center in the town, and each morning, people bring in bags of laundry.
Once the clothes are dried, the volunteers fold them, put them in a clean bag and call people to pick them up.
During the past 10 days, the laundry has come in non-stop.
"The blanket was extremely heavy due to the rain, and there was even more mud inside. They also bring winter clothes that were stacked up in the wardrobe."
In the meantime, other volunteers have been working to restore the rain-hammered ginseng fields.
"Today, they are pulling down the covers that were used to protect ginseng. This is the last step before preparing the land for new crops."
It was hard to get to this stage, as the round-the-clock rain hindered them from digging up the rotten ginseng.
Now the rain has stopped, but they are fighting the heat.
"The biggest problem is the extreme heat. But if you look at the devastation, you forget about the heat."
Volunteers like these are working across the country,.. but the enormous amount of damage means there's still a lot of recovery work left to do.
Lee Kyung-eun, Arirang News, Geumsan.