Gwangju City, Smooth Progress in Disaster Recovery of 17 Rivers Damaged by Heavy Rainfall

[Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Park Seon-gang] Gwangju Metropolitan City announced on the 6th that the disaster recovery project, which invested a total of 10.6 billion KRW (7 billion KRW from the central government and 3.6 billion KRW from the city) for permanent disaster recovery of 17 rivers including Gwangjucheon damaged by last year's heavy rain, is progressing smoothly.

In August of last year, Gwangju experienced a record-breaking average rainfall of 460mm due to heavy rain, causing damage worth over 6.5 billion KRW at 66 locations including embankment collapses and damage to riverside facilities in 17 national and local rivers such as Gwangjucheon.

In response, Gwangju City, in cooperation with autonomous districts, urgently invested over 400 million KRW of city funds to quickly carry out emergency restoration related to secondary damage prevention and residents' convenience facilities (security lights, walking trails, etc.) within the rivers, completing the work in November last year.

For 21 locations along Gwangjucheon, preliminary design was proactively conducted before the disbursement of national subsidies, and construction orders were issued, progressing smoothly.

The disaster recovery construction currently underway on Gwangjucheon is 60% complete, while Yeongsangang and Hwangryonggang rivers are progressing normally at about 15% completion.

Additionally, Gwangsan District invested 100 million KRW from November last year until last month to maintain about 1,000 trees above Jangnokgyo Bridge in Jangnok Wetland, and aims to maintain the remaining fallen trees as much as possible before the rainy season within the 170 million KRW of national funds allocated by the city.

Song Jin-nam, Director of the Water Circulation Policy Division, said, “We will do our best to complete environmental maintenance such as garbage and fallen trees in Hwangryonggang Jangnok Wetland and river disaster recovery before the rainy season.”