Damage to 1,357 Households in 9 Buildings
Sauna Vouchers Provided but Insufficient
On November 29, Yonhap News reported that due to record-breaking heavy snowfall and a sudden cold wave, some households in Helio City, Garak-dong, Songpa-gu, where 40,000 people reside, experienced disruptions in hot water and heating supply, causing inconvenience to residents.
The affected households amounted to 1,357 units across 9 buildings. Both heating and hot water supplies were cut off. This was due to a fire in the heat exchange room, suspected to have been caused by an overload. The apartment management office stated, "It is expected to take about four days to restore the service, but we are trying to shorten the restoration period by even one day," and provided approximately 4,000 affected residents with free passes to a nearby sauna.
However, residents continued to express that sauna passes were insufficient to endure the combined harsh cold and heavy snowfall. Mr. A, in his 60s, who is raising his 5-month-old grandson, said, "The sudden heating outage has caused hardship for the entire family, including my young grandson," adding, "We are coping by wetting towels with warm water and wiping various parts of my grandson's body." Posts on the apartment community board included comments such as, "We couldn’t even wash and woke up cold in the middle of the night, hearing my child coughing beside me," and "What should households with patients do, not just ours?"
The complex is divided into five sections, with about 9,500 buildings housing approximately 40,000 residents. The households without hot water and heating represent about 14.3% of the total. Hot water and heating are supplied to each household through a district heating system that receives heat from a combined heat and power plant.
Helio City is a large complex of 9,510 households completed in December 2018. The average actual transaction price rose from 1.98 billion KRW in the third quarter of last year to 2.26 billion KRW in the third quarter of this year.
On the afternoon of the 27th, employees are performing snow removal work at the Supreme Prosecutors' Office in Seocho-gu, Seoul. Photo by Yonhap News
In the early morning of the 29th, there was also an incident in Deogyang-gu, Goyang-si, Gyeonggi Province, where electricity supply was cut off in an officetel building. Residents experienced significant inconvenience as electricity and heating were unavailable throughout the building, which includes about 700 officetel units. The cause is suspected to be a malfunction in external transformer equipment.
In Hoengseong, Gangwon Province, where about 40 cm of heavy snow fell, power supply facilities such as power lines and poles were damaged in various locations, causing power outages for residents. As of the 29th, 626 households across 178 villages have been affected.
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