Gov’t to overhaul emergency alert system

The government will quickly overhaul its emergency messaging system in the wake of this week’s erroneous alert in an effort to prepare against future missile launches by North Korea, officials said Thursday.

Seoul residents woke up Wednesday morning to air raid sirens and a mobile phone alert advising them to prepare to evacuate after North Korea launched what it claimed was a space vehicle.

The alert caught people off guard as it did not explain why they were being told to evacuate. A follow-up alert sent by the interior ministry compounded the confusion as it claimed the earlier message had been sent in error.

“The Office for Government Policy Coordination will ask the interior ministry and the Seoul metropolitan government to explain the circumstances by today and then discuss improvements,” a senior government official told Yonhap News Agency.

The warning system will need to be updated to provide exact information based on “who, when, where, what, how and why” so that the public can respond calmly to similar events in the future, a key presidential official added.

North Korea has vowed to carry out a second launch of its purported space vehicle after Wednesday’s launch ended in failure.

The Japanese government’s warning system has been cited as a model, with Wednesday’s message saying a missile appeared to have been fired from North Korea and advising residents to take shelter inside a building or underground.