Seoul points to military base as root of massive landslides

SEOUL, Aug. 1 (Yonhap) -- Seoul authorities suspect that rainwater that flowed down from a mountaintop military base was the main trigger of last week's deadly landslides in southern Seoul, but further investigation is needed to find the exact cause of the disaster, the Seoul Metropolitan Government said Monday.
Torrential rains sparked the mudslide at Mount Umyeon in a southern suburb of Seoul on Wednesday, which hit the lower stories of a high-rise apartment building and buried dozens of homes in hillside villages. A total of 18 residents were killed.
The municipal government on Monday announced the interim result of its joint on-site probe with civilian experts to determine the cause of the slide.
Some experts have told media that the rain-induced landslide appears to have started from the Air Force unit located near the top of the mountain, blaming the military for the incident.
"We found that one of the three traces of the landslide started from the boundary of the military base," Jeong Hyeong-sik, a former professor at Seoul's Hanyang University who heads the joint survey team, told reporters. "But we need to conduct an additional probe to find out whether the military facility effected the landslide," he said.
Military officials, if necessary, would join the probe, the civil engineering expert added.
The military, which has denied responsibility for the slide, however, said it already agreed to conduct a joint on-site survey with the local government.
"No establishment at the base was damaged and thus it is difficult to say the military facility caused the landslide," Kim Min-seok, spokesman of the Defense Ministry, said. "We decided to conduct a survey to look closer into the incident."