Typhoon wreaks hav­oc on Korea
As the pow­er­ful storm Typhoon Bolaven bat­tered South Korea radio ama­teurs joined the response and recov­ery efforts to min­imise the toll and damage.
The state dis­as­ter man­age­ment agency report­ed deaths as the storm, the strongest to hit the coun­try for almost a decade, left near­ly 200,000 homes with­out pow­er and prop­er­ty damage.
From the Kore­an Ama­teur Radio League, Yong-Surke Lee HL1FB said the 2‑metre repeater D90IK on a 535m high moun­tain with cov­er­age of at least 100km was used for emer­gency com­mu­ni­ca­tion on the day the storm hit.
Lee said “The con­trol sta­tion 6K2BUF was in charge as the effort was main­tained. Oper­a­tors were able to con­tact sta­tions to get the dis­as­ter infor­ma­tion relayed and report them to the authority.
“Some areas had pow­er out­age so bat­tery oper­at­ed 2m radios were used. DS2HBX went up to the repeater site and had a gaso­line engine gen­er­a­tor ready in case for pow­er outage.”
There were media reports of wide­spread dam­age this week in the less pre­pared North Korea. While South Korea is engaged in a big clean up a close watch is being kept should anoth­er storm Typhoon Tem­bin which was mov­ing over the Yel­low Sea.
— Jim Lin­ton VK3PC, Chair­man IARU Region 3 Dis­as­ter Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Com­mit­tee, with Yong-Surke Lee HL1FB.