With heavy snowfall in the mountainous areas of Gangwon, more than 140 students and staff members at Gangwon National University’s Doke Campus, located at an altitude of 800 meters, spent a night on campus.
According to Gangwon Province and the campus on the 19th, around 4 p.m. the day before, more than 300 students and staff members at the campus were isolated due to the inability to operate the school bus.
Gangwon National University’s Doke Campus, located on Yuksang Mountain in Samcheok, is the highest educational institution in the country in terms of altitude. Unlike typical university campuses, commuting on foot is virtually impossible even when it is not snowing.
The day before, 60.4 cm of snow fell on Hyangro Peak in Gangwon, and this area received 34.7 cm of snow from midnight to 8 p.m. With a large amount of snow accumulating in a short period, the operation of commuting vehicles between Doke-eup and the campus became impossible.
In particular, around 4 p.m., a school bus near the Doke Campus in Samcheok slipped on the snowy road and crashed into a retaining wall, making it even more difficult to operate the school bus.
Students waited for the school bus to arrive while having dinner at a cafeteria arranged by the university, but the isolation continued late into the night. As the university and related agencies like Samcheok City worked tirelessly on snow removal efforts, access for the school bus became possible around 9 p.m., allowing some students to start going home.
Later that night, around 11:58 p.m., the access road to the campus was completely opened, but the university and Samcheok City deemed it impractical for all over 300 students and staff to move at night. Therefore, 140 individuals were distributed across three dormitory buildings with 364 rooms to stay.
As a result, some campus members raised complaints that the university may have recklessly proceeded with classes. They argued that the university should have made some changes to the academic schedule, such as cancelling classes or switching to online instruction, in preparation for the heavy snowfall.
Meanwhile, the heavy snow warning for the Gangwon region was lifted at 12:30 a.m. that day, ending all alerts issued for the area.