Korea Land and Housing Corporation (LH) is stockpiling 100 disaster-response modular homes to swiftly provide housing to people who lose their homes to wildfires, heavy rain and other disasters.
LH said Wednesday it will complete the stockpiling of 100 disaster-response modular homes by the end of August and distribute them across the Sejong and Daegu regions for rapid transport. When a disaster strikes, LH plans to complete on-site delivery and installation within seven days, following consultations with local governments and a survey of displaced residents' needs.
LH has provided emergency housing to a cumulative 1,441 households since the 2017 Pohang earthquake by utilizing vacant units in nearby public rental housing. Support has been limited in non-urban areas, however, where such vacancies are scarce.
To address the shortfall, LH has been working with the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport since the second half of last year on a disaster-response modular housing stockpile project. Under the scheme, modular homes are manufactured and stored in advance, then transported and installed at disaster sites immediately after an incident to provide temporary shelter.
The modular homes were developed using a standard design drawn up with expert input from the National Disaster Management Research Institute and LH's Land and Housing Research Institute. The design improves installation efficiency and mobility, expands window areas to bring in more natural light and create a greater sense of openness, and incorporates barrier-free features — such as the removal of door thresholds — in recognition of the high proportion of elderly people among disaster victims.
LH also plans to provide displaced residents who wish to continue living in the modular homes with a full set of design documents needed for official use approval, allowing them to purchase the units for permanent personal use.
"When an unexpected disaster strikes, the most urgent priority is to quickly provide displaced residents with a safe and comfortable place to live," LH President Lee Sung-hoon said. "As climate change makes large-scale disasters more frequent, we will build a proactive housing support system to serve as a reliable residential safety net."
Meanwhile, LH provided public rental housing to 120 households displaced by a major wildfire that swept through Uiseong, Andong, Yeongyang, Cheongsong and Yeongdeok in North Gyeongsang Province last year.
hwshin@heraldcorp.com
