Slow recovery from heavy snowfall

[Anchor]

In November of last year, record-breaking heavy snowfall caused significant damage to facilities and farms across the country.

As two months have passed, recovery efforts are progressing slowly, and some areas are now suffering from cold wave damage as well.

What is going on? Reporter Song Guk-hoe has the details.

[Report]

The skeletal structure of a facility greenhouse is fully exposed, as heavy machinery tears down rebar and tarps.

The damage from the heavy snowfall in November last year is being addressed, but the demolition work has only just begun.

In Chungbuk's Eumseong County, over 780 farms were affected.

It took a month and a half just to wait for the demolition company to arrive.

[Lee Chang-hyun/Affected Flower Farmer: "It wasn't just one or two houses that collapsed, so there were many difficulties in selecting a demolition company."]

The roof of the facility greenhouse has completely collapsed.

With no end in sight for the demolition, they are only operating the heating system.

They managed to move crops to a relatively intact location, but just as they did, a cold wave hit, causing frost damage to begin.

With the hope of holding out until harvest, flower farmers are incurring heating costs of several million won each month.

[Lee Chang-yong/Flower Farmer Affected by Heavy Snow: "From our perspective as farmers, we are heating the place up when we see green leaves."]

There is also a severe shortage of storage space for flowers to minimize damage.

The temporary storage facility for flowers and distribution center set up by Eumseong County is already at full capacity.

Due to the inability to find temporary storage, flower crops that suffered frost damage are piled up like mountains, waiting to be discarded.

The ongoing conflict between insurance companies and farmers over the scope of damage compensation is also a factor slowing down the recovery process.

[Hwang Hyun-cheol/Chungbuk Eumseong County Agricultural Policy Planning Team Leader: "For farms where insurance payments have not been assessed, recovery is inevitably delayed."]

With the Lunar New Year approaching, farms affected by the heavy snowfall are suffering from a triple whammy of delays in demolition and compensation, compounded by the cold wave.

This is KBS News, Song Guk-hoe reporting.