Prosecutors: "Park Hee-young Only Called Kwon Young-se Right After Itaewon Disaster, Took No Disaster Measures"

Phone Report to Unification Minister Kwon Young-se After Recognizing the Disaster
Order to Collect Protest Flyers at Rally Site Around 9 PM

[Asia Economy Reporter Choi Taewon] It has been revealed that Park Heeyoung, the mayor of Yongsan District, did not take necessary measures to respond to the accident on the day of the ‘Itaewon disaster’ after recognizing the incident, and only made a phone call to Kwon Young-se, the Minister of Unification and a local district lawmaker.

Yongsan District Mayor Park Hee-young is attending the pre-trial detention hearing at the Seoul Western District Court in Mapo-gu, Seoul, on December 26 last year. Photo by Kim Hyun-min kimhyun81@

According to the indictment submitted by the prosecution to Rep. Kim Nam-guk of the Democratic Party of Korea on the 1st, the prosecution stated that Mayor Park recognized the occurrence of the accident around 10:59 PM on October 29 last year and went to the accident site. Afterward, at around 11:23 PM, Mayor Park called Minister Kwon to report the situation but did not request disaster response from related agencies such as the police and fire department.

The prosecution also judged that Mayor Park could have sufficiently anticipated the high risk of disaster occurrence in advance. Mayor Park received photos of the Itaewon area crowded with many people via messenger at 6:40 PM and 7:57 PM. Later, at around 9:06 PM, he posted a message in a group chat room involving secretarial staff saying, “Itaewon is chaotic due to Halloween, so it’s concerning,” and at around 9:30 PM on the same day, he posted in a Telegram chat room with Minister Kwon and others, “There are many crowds gathering, which is worrisome. I will keep paying attention.”

It was also pointed out that at around 8:59 PM, he gave instructions in a group chat room with secretarial staff to “collect protest flyers at the rally site near Samgakji Station.” The secretary-general of Yongsan District Office, who received the instruction, gave orders to on-duty officials preparing to dispatch to the site after receiving a civil complaint call stating, “There are many vehicles and people on the Itaewon road and sidewalks, making it crowded,” to “collect protest flyers scattered on the north gate wall of the War Memorial.” The prosecution ultimately judged that the on-duty office staff being deployed to collect flyers made it difficult to respond to reports of crowd congestion.

There was also criticism that the Yongsan District Office duty room, which should have operated as the disaster safety situation room during the disaster, did not have a disaster safety communication network. The disaster safety communication network should be equipped and used in the disaster safety situation room (the Safety and Disaster Division during the day, and the duty room during nights and weekends). However, the disaster safety communication network was kept in the Safety and Disaster Division throughout the day of the disaster. As a result, the staff working in the duty room on the day of the disaster did not receive any contact from related agencies.