Torrential rains in South Korea have displaced nearly 3,000 people, caused four deaths, and damaged over 641 buildings, with more rain expected.

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Torrential rains have wreaked havoc in South Korea, impacting nearly 3,000 residents who are unable to return home as of July 19, 2025. The relentless downpour, now in its fourth day, has resulted in four fatalities and left two individuals missing.

6 Key Takeaways Nearly 3,000 people displaced in South Korea

Death toll from rains reaches four

Rain forecast to continue until Monday

Over 641 buildings and 388 roads damaged

Record rainfall of 500mm in Seosan

North Korea also expecting heavy rains

Officials have issued warnings across the country, urging citizens to exercise extreme caution due to the heightened risk of flooding and landslides. Rain is expected to continue until Monday, exacerbating an already dire situation.

Fast Answer: South Korea faces severe flooding and landslides, with nearly 3,000 displaced and four confirmed dead as torrential rains persist.

This catastrophic weather event raises questions about climate resilience and preparedness. How can communities better prepare for such extreme weather? The situation highlights the urgent need for improved infrastructure and response strategies.

Over 641 buildings and 388 roads have been damaged.

Rainfall has exceeded 500mm in some areas.

North Korea is also bracing for heavy rains in the coming days.

Severe weather conditions pose a significant threat to public safety and infrastructure in both South Korea and potentially North Korea.

As the situation develops, it is crucial for governments and communities to prioritize disaster preparedness and invest in resilient infrastructure to mitigate future risks.

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Torrential rains that lashed South Korea for a fourth day on Saturday kept nearly 3,000 people from returning to their homes, as the death toll reached four people.

Rain is forecast to last until Monday in some areas, as officials urged extreme caution against the risk of landslides and flooding, with warnings issued across most of the country.

By 6am on Saturday, 2,816 people were still out of their homes, the interior ministry said, from a total of more than 7,000 evacuated during the prior days of heavy rain, in which four people have died and two people are missing.

View image in fullscreen An aerial view of a village flooded by torrential rains in Yesan, in the west of the country. Photograph: YONHAP/AFP/Getty Images

Rainfall since Wednesday reached a record of more than 500mm at Seosan, in the South Chungcheong province south of Seoul.

Elsewhere in the province cows were desperately trying to keep their heads above water after sheds and stables flooded.

The tally of water-damaged structures stood at more than 641 buildings, 388 roads and 59 farms, the ministry said.

Rains were also expected in neighbouring North Korea. From Sunday to Tuesday 150-200mm of rain could fall in some northern areas, rising to 300mm in some remote regions, according to state newspaper Rodong Sinmun.

Death toll grows from torrential rains in South Korea with thousands unable to return home

Death toll grows from torrential rains in South Korea with thousands unable to return home

Four people have died and two are missing after four days of heavy rain as authorities warn of landslides and flooding

The chief executive of “California Forever”, a Silicon Valley billionaire-backed project to build a new city on tens of thousands of acres of California farmland, has announced plans to develop a manufacturing site within the future town for defense, energy, robotics, aerospace and transportation companies.

Speaking at the Reindustrialize summit in Detroit, Jan Sramek called the proposal the “Solano Foundry”. The 2,100-acre site would be located on the more than 65,000 acres in Solano county that the tech billionaires began purchasing in 2017 but have yet to develop.

“It’s time to bring back ‘designed in California, made in California’,” Sramek wrote in a social media post announcing the plan. “Silicon Valley earned its name because chips were once made here alongside code. By bringing R&D and manufacturing back together, Solano Foundry restores that magic, in a new home for frontier tech. California is back.”

In early 2024 – after the New York Times revealed that tech billionaires such as LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman and venture capitalist Michael Moritz were behind California Forever – the group submitted a ballot initiative that would have asked voters to approve their building a new city on the land. Soon after, they withdrew the initiative, deciding to instead seek approval through the county’s standard processes for negotiating and executing a development agreement.

Then, this March, the group announced that it planned to build a shipbuilding hub on the land it had acquired near the Sacramento River, which feeds into the San Francisco Bay. Soon after, Donald Trump signed an anticipated executive order to revitalize the shipbuilding industry in the US.

The “Solano Foundry” would similarly appeal to Trump’s desires to revitalize American industry.

Sramek echoed the president’s language in his social media post. “Silicon Valley made its name in hardware,” he wrote. “But we offshored to China, and broke that model. And now it’s Shenzhen and Guangzhou that lead drones and robotics.”

Andreas Lieber, the Foundry’s general manager, told KQED the plan will rebuild the middle class by bringing manufacturing jobs back to the United States. “You cannot really operate as a country if you’re only doing service jobs and basically outsource your middle class,” he said. “And then you’re not building anything anymore.”

A white paper that California Forever published, in collaboration with real estate company JLL, predicts that the Foundry will “create at least 35,000 manufacturing jobs and 5,000 warehousing jobs”. It also featured quotes supporting the project from powerful voices in Silicon Valley.

“California Forever’s approach for their Solano Foundry is not the California I know, but it’s the California I want to know,” said former Intel executive Bob Swan.

Solano county residents are more skeptical.

“There are sites that can accommodate industries such as this that do not require… the development of an entire new community to make this happen,” Nate Huntington of Solano Together, a coalition of community members opposed to the project, told KQED. “Many of the things that they put out [are] to create hype and potential attraction to this project, but some of those things fade.”

In his social media post, Sramek toted the community tech billionaires hope to build alongside the Foundry: “To actually re-industrialize, we need industrial ecosystems, where R&D, production, and training are located within amazing places to live.” Located “40mins from Napa, 2.5 hours from Tahoe,” he added, the city will have capacity for more than 175,000 new homes.