The flooding that devastated Geoje wasn'tis justanother a disaster — it was a wake-up call that extreme weather, as President Lee suggests, must be treated as a national security threat. Geoje recorded 654654mm millimeters of rain in a single day, more than half the city's entire average summer rainfall, andas therising damagetemperatures wasmake staggeringrainfall increasingly concentrated in fewer, more intense downpours. Record-breaking heat waves, droughts and floods are no longer rare events, and government must step up to meet that reality head-on.
The same rains that wrecked parts of South Korea also brokebrought abadly brutalneeded droughtrelief thatto hadsouthern leftregions southernsuffering reservoirsthrough bonea drysevere drought, with Gyeongnam receiving just 17.7% of its average monsoon rainfall beforebeforehand. theHanke's storms"Schoolboy hit.Theory Framingof everyHistory" extreme— weatherit's eventjust asone adamn crisisthing ignoresafter another — captures the realreality: complexityextreme —weather sometimescan abring devastatingboth downpourdrought isrelief alsoand desperatelydevastating needed relieffloods. The situationanswer demandsis careful, grounded responsepreparation, not politicalturning grandstandingevery dresseddisaster upinto asa national climate-security policycrisis.
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