Media reports suggest many citizens ignored calls to seek shelter, saying they were not concerned about the exercise
A woman holding an umbrella walks past a shelter sign set up on an exit of a subway station during a civil defence drill against possible artillery attacks by North Korea in Seoul on August 23, 2023. © Jung Yeon-je / AFP
Air-raid sirens blared across downtown Seoul on Wednesday as South Korea conducted a nationwide air defense drill, in response to the perceived threat of a North Korean missile strike.
As reported by Reuters, the test in the South Korean capital took place at 2pm local time, with community leaders in yellow jackets and hats reading “civil defense” asking people to get off the streets for about 15 minutes, before the alert was eased.
In addition, motorists in some 200 areas of the country were told to pull to the side of the road, while people in about 500 supermarkets, movie theaters and other public areas were advised to evacuate, the South Korean interior ministry said.
However, multiple media outlets have reported that many pedestrians appeared to ignore requests to seek shelter and didn’t seem concerned about the emergency simulation, simply disregarding the sirens.
One person told Reuters that he didn’t even know about the exercise. “People don’t seem to care about it much. I don’t believe there will be an actual war either,” Na Eun, a 52-year-old architectural designer, told the outlet.
Meanwhile, those who did take part described shelters that were ill-equipped to handle large numbers of people, and poor preparation on the part of the authorities.
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Kim Yu-jin, a 31-year-old service worker, told NK News that she found the whole experience “confounding” after security guards stopped her from entering an insurance company building that was clearly designated on a government map as a shelter open to the public.
“Even the government officials I talked to were unaware of what’s a designated shelter or not. If this was a real emergency situation, it would have been a massive freakout and disaster,” she said.
The 20-minute drill was part of the four-day ‘Ulchi civil defense training,’ which coincides with the 11-day US-South Korean ‘Ulchi Freedom Shield’ exercise. North Korea has repeatedly criticized Seoul and Washington’s maneuvers as preparation for an “actual war to invade the North,” and has warned of a potential “outbreak of a thermonuclear war on the Korean Peninsula.”
