Banjiha homes (Parasite-style flats) to be banned in South Korea after heaviest rainfall floods Seoul

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.  Located underground, banjiha homes are vulnerable to flooding as they are the first to get submerged during monsoons due to rising waters.  In fact most of the victims damaged by the recent floods in Seoul were low-income residents who live underground.  

The situations were not so different back in 2010 and 2011 when the city was swamped by heavy rain.

In addition, residents in banjiha often battle against musty smell, mold, and pest with little sunlight and fresh air inside.

Since the floods, large areas of the neighborhood remain under water while nearby in the upscale Gangnam district, roads are clear and traffic is back to normal.

To stop such tragedies from recurring, Seoul city decided to no longer give permission to construct basement or semi-basement homes.

The city will start consultations with the government to revise the building act so as to totally prohibit the use of basement or semi-basement spaces for residential purposes.  The plans to give a great period of up to 20 years for owners of existing houses to divert them into non-residential uses.

But concerns are rising on the other hand as for some banjiha my be the only housing option they can afford.