The government has raised its emergency response posture by one notch to “Level Two” and raised the heavy rain crisis level to “alert," as heavy rains are pounding the capital region and South Chungcheong Province. 

The interior ministry said the emergency response posture of the Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters was raised at 7:50 a.m. on Thursday.

The headquarters said, as of 6 a.m. Thursday, 209 homes were flooded nationwide, and one person died after a barn collapsed in the city of Nonsan in South Chungcheong Province. The headquarters is investigating the death to determine whether it was caused by the rain. 

A total of 887 people from 36 cities, counties and districts were preemptively evacuated for possible landslides and flood risks, and 312 of them have yet to return home.

The headquarters also received over 150 reports of damage to facilities, including roads, with 279 hectares of farmland flooded.