The Seoul Metropolitan Government dispatched its Baro Volunteer Corps to Geoje, South Gyeongsang Province, to help with recovery from heavy rains that caused extensive damage in the area.
The city said on the 25th that it sent 30 members of the corps to the Georim-ri area of Dundeok-myeon in Geoje on the 23rd and 24th to carry out recovery work. The move followed 200 million won ($144,000) in disaster relief funds provided on the 19th for flood recovery in South Gyeongsang Province, adding on-site manpower to the earlier financial support.
The Baro Volunteer Corps is a specialized disaster-response team deployed to affected sites when disasters occur. For this operation, the city recruited volunteers from among those who took part in recovery work in disaster-hit areas last year, drawing mainly on citizens with field experience, including members of neighborhood watch groups and volunteer fire brigades.
In the Georim-ri area, heavy rains flooded homes across 20 villages and washed mud and debris into vineyards. The volunteers were assigned to a badly damaged vineyard, where they cleared mud from 11 furrows each about 100 meters long and removed debris.
Considering the work took place amid intense heat, the city provided cooling neck wraps, towels and boots and scheduled regular rest breaks to prevent heat-related illness and safety accidents.
Last year, the city dispatched the Baro Volunteer Corps a total of five times to areas including the wildfire-hit region of Andong in North Gyeongsang Province and flood-damaged areas of Yesan in South Chungcheong Province and Gapyeong in Gyeonggi Province.
"There can be no boundary between Seoul and the provinces in the face of disaster," said Kwak Jong-bin, director general of the Seoul city administration bureau. "We will provide the necessary manpower and supplies quickly to help with recovery and stabilize residents' lives."
