On the 5th, the last day of the national mourning period for the Itaewon disaster, people hold a candlelit vigil to commemorate the victims of the Itaewon disaster in the area around the Seoul City Hall Station. Journalist Moon Jae won
On the day of the ‘Itaewon Halloween disaster’, despite the influx of 112 reports indicating the danger of an accident, criticism is pouring in that the police have failed to prevent the disaster. When the Kyunghyang Shinmun compared and analyzed the police response on the day of the disaster with the National Police Agency’s “112 Report Receiving and Ordering Manual”, the reporting response principle, it emerged that the reporting and disclosure of the situation 112 As a result, the room before and after the disaster did not work. Had the manual been followed, when a scream was heard over the receiver just prior to the disaster, the damage situation should have been identified and sent to the scene, but that was not the case.
① ‘Immobility of well-being’ of the group leader of the on-call situation
Following Kyunghyang Shinmun’s coverage on the 6th, Police Officer A, the head of the situation squad at the 112 General Situation Room of the Seoul National Police Agency, behaved like a ‘welfare immobility’ despite the fact that many press death reports were received on the 29th of last month, the day of the disaster. The General Situation Room of Regional Office 112 consists of the Situation Team Leader, Reception Team, Analysis Response Team, Management Team, etc. In the manual, when multiple reports are expected to be reported at the same time, such as disasters and large-scale disasters, the recipient informs the team manager of the situation and the team manager of the situation shares the information with all employees.
It is 11:39 pm when Inspector A reported the incident to his superior, the situation manager Ryu Mi-jin. It has been 1 hour and 24 minutes since the fire brigade received the victim’s report. Considering that 87,112 reports were received in the Itaewon area from 10:15 pm to 11 pm asking for help, this is a difficult answer to the situation. The situation leader is said to have a system capable of verifying the content of the reports received in real time.
Answers that did not follow the 112 Situation Room agent manual are also reported as a problem. According to the manual, “In case of an emergency, a three-way call (participation in the receipt of a report by a third party other than the recipient and the reporter), notifies the analysis response team and the room team leader situations “is broadcast for others to hear), but this principle was not observed.
② Omit the “question” to understand the situation even for “press death” and “scream”
According to the manual, when answering a phone call, incidents should be handled through intuitive situations → identification of the complainant’s location → identification of the damage situation. However, the police response to the report at 10:11 pm, just before the disaster, actually violated all principles at this stage.
The reporter said: “I think I will be crushed. Everyone was in an uproar, “and when the name of the nearby shop was revealed, the police said,” Yes, they lobbied “and reconfirmed and said they would track the location. At the same time, the range of locations is was extended by receiving phone calls to “near Itaewon station.” It is a violation of the rule to restrict the scope when locating the complainant. Also, although it was possible to know the emergency situation ‘intuitively’, such as the complainant’s screams , the response was inappropriate.As a result, 4 minutes after receiving the complaint, a large-scale crushing incident occurred, but the police took no action.
From 9:00 pm, about an hour before the disaster, the townspeople rang the bells saying: “I run the risk of being crushed”, “Please take control” and “Can you get out as soon as possible?” However, the police classified the report as “Code 1 (emergency)” and asked no further questions necessary to understand the situation. Even though it was a “duplicate report of multiple reporters” that required being sent to the field, he was also responsible for not paying much attention.
③ Inadequate demand for ‘cooperation with related organizations’ despite the expectation of human victims
Also, on the day of the disaster, the police did not cooperate well with related agencies such as the fire department. Police asked the Seoul Disaster Prevention Center for a response only for a total of two reports at 8:37 pm and 9:01 pm. In the fire department, reporters returned the report to the police saying that “the maintenance and inspection order is necessary” and the police who received the report handled it according to the “duplicate report of multiple journalists”. A fire officer said, “In one case, the caller was called again, so he said ‘control is needed’ and the call ended and told the policeman to drive him again.” “I need this,” he said, “and if you call 112, I’ll get back to you.”
In addition, it should be noted that manual 112 does not contain countermeasures for crowd-type accidents, including crushing accidents. The manual simply indicates how to handle the situation in case of “when a person is down”, but it was a general emergency that was far from a crowd-type incident like this disaster.
Yoon-seong Oh, professor of police administration at Soonchunhyang University, said: “The Seoul Police Bureau (which received the 112 report) should have given specific instructions on what to do, rather than just giving orders. It seems that workers of the time lacked awareness or willingness to regulate. ”Kim Won-sik, professor of police administration at Seowon University, also said:“ If I (a police officer in the situation room of the Seoul office) I can’t understand the situation, I have to make the whole workforce feel in the situation room and understand through the ‘public office’, he said.
