Busan City Conducts 2023 Disaster Response Safety Korea Drill

At 2 PM on the 1st, conducted at City Hall Disaster Safety Countermeasures Headquarters and Banyeo Agricultural Market Station of Urban Railroad

21 organizations including Transportation Corporation, National Police Agency, Fire and Disaster Headqu

On the 1st at 2 p.m., Busan City conducted the ‘2023 Disaster Response Safe Korea Drill’ at the City Hall Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters and the Banyeo Agricultural Market Station of the Urban Railway.

On the 1st, Busan City conducted the 2023 Disaster Response Safe Korea Drill.

Co-hosted jointly with Haeundae-gu and Busan Transportation Corporation, the drill involved about 400 participants from 21 organizations and groups including Busan Police Agency and Busan Fire and Disaster Headquarters, as well as citizens.

The Disaster Response Safe Korea Drill is a nationwide exercise overseen annually by the Ministry of the Interior and Safety since 2005, involving central government ministries, local governments, public institutions, and the public to comprehensively check disaster response systems at the whole-government level.

This drill simulated a complex disaster scenario at the Banyeo Agricultural Market Station of the urban railway, including derailment and fire caused by a bomb terror attack, and was conducted as realistically as possible. It focused on checking the cooperation system among primary response agencies (Busan Transportation Corporation, police, fire department, etc.) for passenger evacuation and patient transport to prevent initial damage spread.

Notably, unlike last year, this year’s drill established a ‘multi-channel broadcasting system’ that simultaneously conducted tabletop and field drills, linking in real time the activation of the Busan City and Haeundae-gu Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters (tabletop drill) with disaster site response at Banyeo Agricultural Market Station (field drill) as an integrated connected exercise.

Additionally, using the disaster safety communication network (PS-LTE) between the disaster site and the Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters, the drill carried out rapid situation dissemination and reporting, emergency response, and recovery training to ensure practical usefulness in real situations.

The tabletop drill focused on activating the Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters and conducting disaster site response actions according to the drill situation.

Following the disaster response action manual, response action training was conducted according to the missions and roles of each collaborative working group and related agencies included in the Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters, including ▲initial situation reception, dissemination, and reporting ▲holding situation assessment meetings ▲activation of the Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters ▲focused discussions on problems and solutions according to the drill situation.

At the Banyeo Agricultural Market Station, the field drill involved joint disaster site response training by related agencies.

They conducted ▲assignment of drill scenarios ▲situation dissemination and initial response ▲full-scale emergency response (checking civil, government, military, and police collaborative response system) ▲recovery and restoration training.

In particular, the Busan Police Agency’s detailed ‘terror situation’ training (bomb disposal, hostage situations, subduing terrorists, etc.) during the disaster occurrence phase drew attention, as did the initial response training by the autonomous disaster prevention teams and self-defense fire brigades of Haeundae-gu and Busan Transportation Corporation (passenger evacuation, patient transport, use of on-site smoke prevention equipment).

Mayor Park Hyung-jun stated, “Through drills similar to real situations, we will strengthen practical response capabilities and actively work to promptly improve any shortcomings found during the drills. We will continue to conduct disaster preparedness drills, including the Safe Korea Drill, in a substantial manner to thoroughly check disaster response capabilities and cooperation systems among related agencies.”