Probe concludes landslide in Seoul not man-made disaster

SEOUL, Sept. 15 (Yonhap) -- The Seoul Metropolitan Government said on Thursday that a landslide that killed 18 people in southern Seoul this summer was not triggered by man-made causes. The landslide hit villages on the hillside of Mount Umyeon in a southern suburb of Seoul on July 27 as torrential rains, estimated to be the heaviest to hit the area in a hundred years, pounded the capital. The probe results said that heavy downpours that lasted for more than a day made the ground unable to absorb rainwater and heaps of earth, rocks and broken branches of trees were swept away as rains clogged the ditches. These resulted in a landslide that devastated the lower stories of a high-rise apartment building and buried homes in the villages, the authorities said. The joint probe, conducted by a panel of local government officials and civilian experts in the wake of the disaster, found that a military unit located on top of the mountain was not the direct cause of the landslide because no establishment at the base was damaged in the downpours. But the results are likely to spark controversy as they came after some landslide victims filed damages suits against relevant authorities -- the Seocho Ward Office, the Seoul metropolitan government and the state. They claim the landslide was the result of the authorities' poor precautionary measures.