Irish musicians escape from Korean floods

With promises never to complain about the Irish weather again, four traditional musicians arrived home yesterday after surviving flooding and landslides in South Korea which have claimed more than 50 lives.

The four, members of the Comhaltas Ceoltoiri Eireann group based in Monkstown, Dublin, had been invited to perform at an international archaeological conference, the World Megalithic Dolmen Festival, in the central town of Kangwha. No sooner had they arrived, however, than Typhoon Olga struck.

"It was a nightmare," said Eamonn Walsh, from Tallaght, Dublin, an uilleann pipes player. "We looked out the hotel window at what should have been shops and houses and rice fields and all we saw was water. It was like a hotel in the middle of a river."

The group had to be moved to a building on higher ground when the roof of their hotel began to leak and was in danger of collapsing. After the rains subsided, they were evacuated through a mountain pass, avoiding submerged roads and bridges.

As well as entertaining the conference delegates, the band was due to perform on Korean television. However, all programmes were cancelled to make way for emergency messages.

While the musicians were disappointed, their thoughts were first and foremost with the local population.

"It was heartbreaking to see families who had lost all their land, men who were weeping over their homes which had been washed away - and these homes were no better than hen-houses you'd find down the country," said Mr Walsh.

With him on the trip was Micheal O Halmhain, from Inis Oirr in the Aran Islands, Trina Galvin, from Ennis, Co Clare, and Victor Alexander, from Killala, Co Mayo.

The floods were the worst to hit South Korea in 40 years, destroying up to 100,000 hectares of farmland and nearly 10,000 homes.