Telebabad

Seoul flooding (left) Parasite movie featuring banjiha home (right) The heaviest rain in 115 years pounded Seoul and surrounding area leaving 11 people dead and 8 others missing.   Among the victims was a family of three who lived in a semi-basement known as the Banjiha (Ban = Semi Jiha = Basement).   A woman with a developmental disability, her younger sister, and the sisters teenage daughters got help after their home was flooded by the heavy rains but failed to escape. As of 2020 around 200,000, or 5%, of the total homes in Seoul had been in the basement or semi-basement levels.  It has been an affordable housing for urban dwellers because of its cheap price amid the rapidly growing housing prices.  Even before the recent tragedy domestic and foreign media shed light on the life in banjiha after the Oscar-winning film 'Parasite' portrayed the poor Kim family living in a tiny dark semi-basement home.   As seen in the film and in real life banjiha is not an ideal place to live