President Yoon Suk-yeol, front, walks down a poor housing area of Silimdong, Seoul, Tuesday, a day after a family of three who lived in a semi-basement home in the neighborhood were found dead after heavy downpour. One of the dead was a 40-something woman with a developmental disability. Yonhap

By Kang Hyun-kyung

President Yoon Suk-yeol directed the Ministry of the Interior and Safety and other related ministries on Tuesday to keenly watch the developments of torrential downpours and to draw up measures to protect people's lives and their property while preparing to deal with the aftermath of the record rainfall in the central part of the country.

"As we've learned, the rainfall per hour broke the record and the downpour is said to be the consequence of climate change," he said while presiding over a meeting with the heads of related ministries at the Government Complex Building in Seoul on Tuesday. "The Cabinet ministries must conduct a zero-based review of the current disaster management system, as unusual weather conditions will become the new normal due to climate change."

According to the presidential office, Yoon had been in touch with Prime Minister Han Duck-soo and Interior Minister Lee Sang-min from Monday night until early Tuesday morning at his residence in southern Seoul. During those hours, it said, Yoon was debriefed in real time about the rainfall and damage incurred while directing his officials on what to do. Yoon set up a conference call with Cabinet members of the related ministries on Tuesday, the office said.

Yoon has been criticized for working from home, with the lawmakers of the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) trying to link the practice as a consequence of the relocation of the presidential office from Gwanghwamun to Yongsan.

Rep. Kang Hoon-sik of the DPK criticized Yoon for "his absence" in the presidential office when the nation was flooded.

"In a situation like this where the nation is mired in an extreme weather condition, every minute counts… Three months ago when the relocation of the presidential office was hotly debated, he clearly said there would be no major security problem even though the presidential office was to be relocated to Yongsan," the lawmaker wrote on Facebook, rebuking the president for allegedly being too shortsighted to be unable to figure out what could happen as a result of the relocation.

Another DPK lawmaker, Han Jun-ho, assailed Yoon for having left the presidential office to go home Monday evening.

"If such a downpour was expected, the president should not have gone home and opted instead to work in the office. I wonder if he is really serious about leading the nation," Han wrote on his social media. "Can we trust a president like him who couldn't be at his office to work on a rainy day? He is too pathetic!"

To refute the allegations, the presidential office unveiled Yoon's detailed schedule during the downpour. It said Yoon worked with the prime minister from 9 p.m. Monday to 3 a.m. Tuesday over the phone to stay informed about the weather conditions and resumed work at 6 a.m. Tuesday.

The presidential office made public Yoon's timeline in an unusually thorough manner because failure to do so could end up backfiring.

In Korean politics, a president's whereabouts in times of crisis has become a political football. This is because their absence from work and failure to make timely decisions during critical hours could lead to an irreversible tragedy.

Former President Park Geun-hye had been portrayed as an "absent-minded" leader by the opposition party at the time for disappearing from the public's view for seven hours when the Sewol passenger ferry sank in waters off the southwestern port of Jindo in 2015. The tragic maritime incident took the lives of more than 300 people, mostly high school students on an excursion to the scenic island of Jeju.

Until she was impeached on March 10, 2017, the specter of her whereabouts during the seven-hour period, which still remained a mystery, haunted her and discredited her leadership.

Yoon's predecessor, Moon Jae-in, also faced a similar accusation back in 2021 after a South Korean fishery official went missing on the West Sea and was eventually killed by North Korean soldiers. South Korea's military reportedly learned about the missing official who apparently went adrift in the North's maritime territory at 3:30 pm on September 22, 2021, while Moon was briefed at around 6:30 p.m. The fishery official was killed three hours later.

Moon's whereabouts during the six-hour period ― between 3:30 pm when the South learned that the official was still alive in North Korea's sea territory, and 9:30 p.m. when he was shot dead by the North on the ocean ― had become a political football as he had been repeatedly asked to clarify what he did during those hours.