An evacuation order mistakenly sent to Seoul residents after North Korea launched a rocket caused panic Wednesday in the South Korean capital, and cast doubt on the authorities' ability to respond in the event of a real attack. "Citizens, prepare to evacuate and allow children and the elderly to evacuate first" was the ominous message, accompanied by a shrill ring, that all mobile phones in Seoul received at 06:41 a.m.
The message did not specify why this alert was being sent or where citizens were supposed to go. Seoul has long had a network of underground shelters, but in living memory, they have never been used in an actual emergency. South Korea's largest internet portal, Naver, has fallen apart because of excess traffic generated by the alert, the company told AFP. "We inform you that the alarm sent at 06:41 was issued incorrectly," said a second alert sent about twenty minutes later.
The incident sowed fear, and many Seoul residents expressed their anger on social media, with some even calling on the mayor to resign. "I took my two young children to an underground car park as I had been advised, I was in a state of shock," a 37-year-old father told AFP when asked to be identified by his surname Yoon. As for the second message canceling the alert, it left him "speechless and furious".
'Cry wolf'
«
Now, when a real alarm goes off, no one will believe it. It's like in the fable of the boy who cried wolf," he said. The alert was triggered after North Korea launched a rocket carrying a spy satellite, which crashed in the Yellow Sea due to a technical problem. But the South Korean military said the projectile never threatened Seoul and did not even pass over the region.
«
It was a space launch over the sea," tweeted Jeffrey Lewis, director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Project (EANP) at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies. "It's like Japan sounds the alarm and asks everyone to go to the shelters every time South Korea does a space launch," he said. Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon defended himself by saying his administration "deemed immediate action necessary" after the launch.
«
It may have been an overreaction, but there is no compromise when it comes to safety," he told a news conference, while promising to review the city's alert system to prevent further confusion.
Exasperation
On the internet, many South Koreans expressed their exasperation at this fiasco. "They didn't tell us why we had to evacuate, or where we needed to go," one Twitter user complained @duckdo_1226. "If a real war breaks out, I think I'll end up getting killed."
Another Seoul resident, @pedestrian_1234, said he panicked: "I almost fainted, because the alert text told us to evacuate without giving any really necessary information." "There was a voice ad outside that I couldn't even hear. My hands were shaking," he said.
Undermined trust
South Korea remains officially at war with North Korea, as the war between the two countries between 1950 and 1953 ended only with an armistice, not a peace treaty. Minseon Ku, a political scientist at Ohio State University, said Wednesday's blunder was a symptom of a chronic security problem in the South.
«
This hitch is unfortunate because South Korea is technically at war right now, it highlights a potential flaw in civil security that could pose a real risk," she told AFP. "It is hoped that this incident will serve as a reminder to local and national authorities that strong and reliable civil security trumps all other considerations."
Ankit Panda, another U.S.-based Korea expert, said the mistake should lead to an investigation and review of South Korea's operational procedures during its northern neighbor's frequent missile tests. "False alarms can be particularly dangerous in times of crisis, but they also undermine public trust in peacetime," he told AFP.
