[Kokomu Steamed Review] On top of a 6-pyeong water tank, 198 people crossed their arms and endured... Siru Island's Miracle

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The story of 'that day' in history, which we should not forget, is told by Jang Hyun-seong, Jang Seong-gyu, and Jang Do-yeon of 'Jang Trio' (hereinafter referred to as 'Kkokomu').

For those who missed the main broadcast, or for those who watched the broadcast but want to chew on the contents again, SBS Entertainment News organizes it in one room.

episode that aired on the 17th

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as

story

friends .

August 19, 1972.

A typhoon warning has been issued in Korea due to the typhoon 'Betty' with a maximum wind speed of 60m/s.

Fortunately, the typhoon passed away, but due to the influence of the typhoon, rain clouds spread and rain continued to fall from August 18, causing a major flood in Seoul, central and Gangwon regions.

It is the second typhoon with the largest loss of life in Korean history.

This is the appearance of Yongsan, Seoul, which was locked at the time.

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An island village in Danyang, North Chungcheong Province, the day after heavy rain.

This island is called Siru Island because it resembles a round bowl 'Siru' used for making rice cakes.

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On the morning of August 19, the people of Shiru Island were busy.

From children to adults, you and I gathered at the creek below Siru Island with fishing nets and sticks in our hands.

to catch fish.

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At the bottom of Siru Island, there is a creek of the Namhangang River, but there is usually very little water, so residents just cross it.

But when it rains, the water rises to the knees, and fish from upstream splash in the river.

If you just spread the net and raise it, 40 to 50 fish will follow you.

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Everyone was excited and shouted at the fun of catching fish.

Let's catch a fish and make Maeuntang, and the whole village is in a festive mood.

There was also 12-year-old Sutaek in this place.

But Soo-taek saw something in the distance.

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"When I'm catching fish, I can see the water quickly filling up over there. The water is coming down from the very top. It came like a wave. The water suddenly rises like a broken dam. It's called water on a mat. It's on a mat."

-Oh Soo-taek, then 12 years old

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As if a straw mat is being rolled up from afar, like a huge wave rushing in, the river winds around and rushes into the village.

People in the river started running quickly.

First of all, people went to the tobacco fields rather than avoiding the highlands.

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The people of Siru Island made a living by farming tobacco and cultivating mulberry trees.

However, if the tobacco field is submerged in water, it will ruin the one-year crop.

People rushed in and started picking tobacco leaves.

But just then, it starts raining again from the sky.

The river came into the tobacco fields.

It rises up to your knees in no time.

Water comes in to the entrance of the village, and it gradually increases.

I've never had anything like this before, no matter how much it rained.

"Neighborhood people! Hurry up! Water is coming in now!"

Well, the situation is not serious.

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Sutaek's house is here.

Su-taek was cleaning the fish he had just caught, wondering if there was anything special.

But at that time, the haengnangchae, which was used as a barn, did not hesitate.

Su-taek packed up and ran away with his father.

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The situation was similar at the sleep center on the other side of the island.

The breeding center is a place that teaches you how to grow mulberry trees and raise silkworms.

Silkworms eat mulberry leaves, and Siru Island is an environment where mulberry leaves grow well.

At that time, many other people came to Siru Island to learn this occupation.

Mostly young girls between the ages of 16 and 18.

One of them is this girl.

Shin Jun-ok, 18 years old, from Jecheon.

Jun-ok was picking mulberry leaves here that day too.

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"The water gradually rises. The educator said, 'It must be dangerous here. I think I will have to go up to a higher place.'

-Shin Jun-ok, 18 years old at the time

I thought that if I went to the top of the village and waited for a while, the water would drain.

But it wasn't.

The house was washed away and there was an uproar.

"My mother just woke me up. When I asked why, she said the house was being washed away. When I got there, the house was really being washed away. The water was blowing fast. I've never seen the water rise so fast."

-Park Dong-

jun, 23 years old at the time, Dong-jun's house had a rather high ground.

The people of the lower village came up to Dong-jun's house like an evacuation procession, carrying oxen and carrying household goods.

The situation is getting more and more serious.

The water came up quickly and came to the house in an instant.

Mr. Dong-jun hurriedly ran to the yard, freed the tied dog, opened the cage, and opened the cage and put the rabbit on the roof.

It's not just Dongjun.

So all the livestock in the neighborhood ran out of the house.

Now you have to go as high as possible.

The tallest house on Siru Island is the house of 27-year-old Yoo Sang-soon.

All the villagers packed up and rushed to Sang-soon’s house.

It's a complete market.

But there was something even more surprising.

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"I was surprised and looked outside with the baby on my back. I couldn't see a large river (originally), but I could see it from my house. When the house opens up, dust rises and disappears. The collapse of the house is not a big deal."

-Yoo Sang-soon, 27 years old at the time

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A black river is swallowing the whole village.

The river keeps rushing and is coming.

Before I knew it, it came to the front of Mr. Sangsoon's house.

Now I have to go to a higher place, the highest place on Siru Island.

The highest point on Siru Island is 'Up Songjeong', a village shelter with 40 to 50 pine trees.

But the worst situation is approaching when the water rises to the upper Songjeong.

At that moment, someone screamed.

"Let's go up there!" he said.

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It was a water tank.

It is a cylindrical cement structure, 6m high and 5m in diameter.

It is a space of about 6 pyeong at the height of the apartment on the second floor.

By the way, the number of people gathered in front of the water tank was about 200 people.

It's hard to climb all of them, and I don't know how long I can hold out if I do.

Then again, someone shouted.

"Let's gather the planks!"

People started gathering wood that could be used as materials nearby.

To create additional shelter space.

In an urgent situation where the water kept rising and time was running out, the villagers united as one to tear down the fence and gather materials to build three shelters in the form of huts on top of pine trees.

A total of four shelters were created, including the water tank.

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Before I knew it, the water was up to my ankles.

There is no time.

We have to get up on the water tank quickly.

At someone's cry, "Let's put the children up first!", mothers holding their babies started to go up one by one.

This is around 2:00 PM.

Yoo Sang-soon, who lived at the top of the village.

The youngest just turned 10, so he climbed onto the water tank first.

Climbing 6m high is not an ordinary thing.

The improvised ladder itself was poor, and even had a baby on its back.

Still, what should I do?

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I barely climbed onto the water tank.

At that moment, the sight that came into my eyes from the top of the water tank was shock and horror itself.

The village has all disappeared and there is a sea of ​​water everywhere.

All sorts of garbage and houses are about to be swept away, but there's something on the roof over there.

it's a person

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"The roof didn't break and was floating away, but a person climbed up on it. It was so scary. Even though 50 years have passed, when I think about it even now, my body and mind tremble so I couldn't speak."

-Yoo Sang-soon, then 27-year- old Sang-soon,

followed by 33-year-old Choi Ok-hee on the ladder.

She has a 100-day-old baby on her back, one arm holding her ladder, and the other holding her 3-year-old son.

So the old people and children went up one after another.

Her water is up to her knees.

There are a lot of people who haven't climbed yet.

In one corner someone is crying and calling out "mom".

That's right, sleep center girls.

I came here to get a job and help the family, but if I do wrong, I could die.

how scary would that be

But at that moment, someone shouted.

"Now, let's start with people from outside the country!"

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That's how the girls at the sleep center climbed onto the water tank before the villagers did.

There is no place above the water tank now.

All that remains are three makeshift huts.

There are 8 people in Sutaek’s family, and they all went up to the second hut.

At this time, Sutaek's father gave the children a rope.

He said, "Guys, you have to hold on to this no matter what."

They tied one end of the rope to a tree and told them to hold on to it if it floated away.

Mr. and Mrs. Hyeon-su, who were class presidents in the neighborhood, also went up to the hut together with their five siblings.

I was late helping others.

Dong-jun, who was freeing the livestock, also arrived too late and went up to the third hut.

But Hyeon-su, the father of the five siblings, suddenly jumped down from the tree.

Sutaek's father jumped too.

They struggled to the water tank, submerged up to their thighs, and freed the cows that people had been dragging.

Fearing that the cows tied around the water tank would drown if left alone, they let go of their reins one by one.

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But at this time, I see a very strange scene.

The cows didn't go anywhere, they just kept swimming around the water tank with their big eyes wide open.

Did the cows also want to protect people?

Hyeon-soo and Su-taek's father released the reins of the cows and couldn't go back to the hut.

In that short time, the water had already filled up to my waist, and I had no choice but to climb into the water tank.

I managed to squeeze through the dense crowd.

And I shouted at the hut on top of the pine tree across the street.

"Guys, be careful! Hold the tree well! See you later!"

Suddenly, I became a separated family from my family.

Nobody knew then.

What fate will this bring?

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Everyone climbed into shelters.

There were 8 people in the 1st hut, 24 people in the 2nd hut, and 2 people in the 3rd hut.

A whopping 198 people climbed onto the water tank.

The top of the water tank has a diameter of 5m and an area of ​​6 pyeong.

Can there be 198 people in this space?

The production team of 'Kokomu' experimented with the help of Danyang-gun Office and Danyang High School students.

At that time, a set was made the size of a water tank, and students climbed onto it one after another.

198 people barely climbed on top of it as it was completely packed.

How long can you survive in this state?

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It was around 3:00 PM when the villagers evacuated.

In a confined space, people's bodies are tightly packed, making it difficult and frustrating to move.

The rain keeps falling and the water keeps rising.

At that time, 15-year-old Kihong was also standing on the edge of the water tank.

“If you push it a little to one side, someone outside may fall, so please don’t push it and shout inside. I thought about whether I could live..." -Kim

Ki-hong, then 15 years old

So some time has passed.

Kihong struggled to hold on, but suddenly something came into his arm.

"Cross your arms! Cross your arms!"

I said let's cross our arms and keep each other from being pushed out.

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People outside started to cross their arms.

Each other became a 'human fence' to each other.

We replicated this situation in our experiment.

The people on the outside braced themselves with their arms so that they wouldn't fall, and the people on the inside raised their hands and held them close together.

Crossing my arms gave me a sense of stability.

So, how long can you survive in this state?

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When someone shouted "let's stop", we decided to end the experiment and proceeded with the experiment.

The students concentrated on the experiment, encouraging each other to "Hold on a little longer!"

The time he endured was 3 minutes and 54 seconds.

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"I realized firsthand that it is not as easy as I thought to hold on in this small space."

-Shin Yoon-seo, Danyang High School sophomore

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“As I tried to hold out against the people on the inside from the outside, I felt like I was on the edge of a precipice, so I felt psychologically pressured.”

-Lee Soo-jae, 2nd year Danyang High School

The rain doesn't stop and it's getting dark.

Sang-soon, who climbed the water tank first, was in the middle of the water tank.

He's holding a one-year-old baby on his back, a 9-year-old and a 6-year-old in each hand.

Even after being in the rain for hours, I can't wipe my face once.

I can't let go of his hand.

Besides, his whole body trembled.

There was another hard thing.

menstruation right away.

At some point, people started to solve physiological phenomena while standing.

It's been 6 hours since I climbed into the water tank before I knew it.

It's pitch black all around.

The river water is now up to the nose of the water tank.

It seemed like it would completely submerge if it warmed up a little more.

"I'm dead now," I thought.

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Then, how was the situation in the hut next to the water tank?

There are fewer people than a water tank, so you can still sit down, but it's lower than a water tank, so it's much closer to the river.

The sound of the water was so frightening.

Surprisingly, I fell asleep even in that situation.

The kids, including Su-taek, start to doze off.

It's 12 o'clock at night in this state.

It's been 9 hours on the water tank.

Fortunately, the rain is starting to subside.

Just then, Ok-hee's baby started crying.

A baby who has just turned 100 days old is having a hard time even as an adult, how hard it must be.

I breastfed in the morning and still starved.

Ok-hee struggled to suck her breast and took her baby in her arms.

It was then.

The people who were close to each other move little by little.

At some point, a very small space opened up.

People who made space for babies.

Mr. Okhee squatted down and sucked her breast.

Even if you're full, you're smiling now.

Even in the midst of that, Ms. Ok-hee said it felt like the pain disappeared momentarily.

But at that moment, the water tank seemed to stumble once, and then people fell over to Ok-hee.

Ms. Ok-hee was pressed down with her baby in her arms.

After a while, people managed to stand up.

Ok-hee also barely got up.

But something is a little strange.

she doesn't cry

She doesn't move even when touched.

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“The moon came out after the rain stopped, and when I looked down at (the baby), it seemed to be sleeping. I told the lady in my neighborhood, ‘Ajumma, look to see if the baby is breathing’, and she touched it and said, ‘The baby is not breathing’. I don't think so. But even then, it's useless. My baby won't come back to life after he dies. No matter how much I scold him... When I look at my peers, I think, 'My child would have been just like me.' (Living) I can't forget."

- Choi Ok-hee, she was 33 years old at the time

, when the baby fell and died of shock, Ok-hee.

She said all night she couldn't say a word and she just held the baby.

But after a while, her second hut collapsed.

The hut collapsed when one of the trees supporting it was uprooted, and 21 people fell into the water.

In an instant, people were swept away by the water.

Hyeon-su and Su-taek's father, who were on top of the water tank, saw his wife and children drowning and wanted to run out immediately, but he couldn't.

Then the water tank could collapse.

In that brief moment, the children's screams get farther and farther away.

Silence flows over the water tank.

All I hear is the sound of water.

All 21 floated away.

At that time, Su-taek, who fell into the water, is swept away and struggling.

I fell asleep in the hut, but when I woke up, I was in the water.

The moment he was floundering, he grabbed a branch.

He just hoped that the water would recede, in the hope that he could live when it receded.

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back to the water tank.

It was around 3:00 in the morning, about two hours after people had left.

It's still dark all around, but people start to mumble.

"Look at the cow over there. The water seems to be draining."

The cows that swam all night stand still.

It was submerged, but when I saw the cow standing there, I thought the water was receding.

At 4:00 in the morning, the people outside the water tank started to come down slowly.

It is 2:00 PM by the time we got to the water tank.

It lasted on it for nearly 14 hours.

The villagers were finally relieved, saying, "You're alive now."

But I thought everyone had come down, but someone was crying on top of the water tank.

When I went up, I saw Ok-hee holding the baby and sobbing.

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was completely drained of water.

What was the village scene like after the water receded?

It's just an empty plain full of mist.

It has all been washed away and all traces of human life have completely disappeared.

But, I can't just sit still.

We need to find the missing 21 quickly.

The village youths started looking around by boat.

After a while, I hear a faint sound from somewhere.

An old lady is hanging from a tree.

Surprised young men hurriedly climbed up and pulled the woman down.

At that time, Mr. Hyeon-soo frantically searched for his family.

Soon after, he found his wife first.

As she was drifting away, her clothes got caught in the barbed wire and luckily saved her life.

He also found a 15 year old and a 12 year old second.

I was swept away, and I managed to hold on to a tree.

But no matter how much I search, I can't find the other three children.

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“All three of my children were washed away and only two remained.

-Kim Hyun-soo's wife, Kwon Soon-yi

"They washed their children in the water... Even if they tried not to drink, they ended up drinking again. Even after throwing three children in the water. That's how toxic people are."

-Mr. Kim Hyun-soo,

of the 21 people who fell into the water, 3 were found dead and 4 were not even found.

Among them was Su-taek's 7-year-old youngest sister.

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"I can still see the face of my little sister playing in the fields of Siru Island. She is cute and dainty. Her heart was a little strange at the time. I couldn't even find her body. Even though I couldn't express it because I was young, my feelings were kind of like that."

-Oh Soo-taek, 12 years old at the time

It didn't rain much on this side of Siru Island, but why did such a great flood suddenly occur?

There was torrential rain in the Yeongwol area, which is upstream.

But there was another reason why Siru Island suffered so much damage.

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There is a bridge called Sangjin Bridge in the upper part of Siru Island.

At that time, the Sangjin Bridge collapsed during the flood.

The residents of Siru Island think that there was a huge water crisis because of this.

What does the collapse of the bridge have to do with the water crisis?

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"Up there, trees cut down around this area of ​​Yeongchun-myeon were piled up by the riverside like a mountain. Because the river swelled, (the trees) were just washed away at the same time, and the Sangjin Bridge had a limit in its strength, so the dam was built because it couldn't withstand it. Was

n't the worst situation on Siru Island caused by the river pouring down as if it had collapsed..."

-Kim Moon-geun, Danyang County Governor

At the time, a lot of logging was done on the upper part of Siru Island, but the logs piled up to be moved were washed away and piled up under the Sangjin Bridge.

It blocked the waterway and became like a dam, but when the Sangjin Bridge collapsed, the river water poured all at once like a dam collapsed, causing great damage.

After that day, the villagers said, "Since we are all born again, let's remember this day and gather on Siru Island someday and have a birthday party together."

But that promise has never been kept since.

We couldn't gather on Siru Island.

When the Chungju Dam was built in 1985, the village was submerged.

But on August 19, 2022, the people of Shiru Island gathered together to keep the promise of that day.

after 50 years.

I'll show you that special birthday party.

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On August 19, 2022, a hotel in Danyang.

People I'm glad to see after a long time.

We hugged each other and cried.

The people who said "We all have the same birthday" boarded a boat and headed for the disappeared Siru Island.

Looking at my hometown, Siru Island, which is now submerged in the water, I am deeply moved.

I pray for the rest of the people who went to heaven first.

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The people of Siru Island kept order and were considerate of each other even in the flood.

they still say

It's a miracle that he survived.

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"That's a miracle. Now that I think about it, it's a miracle that I survived."

-Park Dong-jun, 23 years old at the time

"It shouldn't happen even once in my life, but such a thing is truly a miracle..."

-Kim Ki-hong, then 15 years old

(Reporter Kang Seon-ae of SBS Entertainment News)