Power outage sparks uproar online for days

By Yun Suh-young

Bloggers and tweeters continued to vent their fury online, Sunday, over the rolling power outages, ridiculing government officials for their ineffective management of the incident.

Following nationwide blackouts, citizens have posted countless comments online criticizing government incompetence and failure to manage a national crisis.

Most attacked the government for its failure to alert the public.

“Is it in the emergency manual to cut power without any notice?” asked a tweeter with the ID: deer***. “Is this the national system? This is just ridiculous,” he said.

Another tweeter, yogy***, said, “It’s surprising there’s something in the manual that allows rotational power outage by region. Then isn’t there anything in the manual that says you should alert the public? How ironic.”

According to “Operating Rules on the Electricity Market,” the national emergency manual, emergency power cuts can be executed when electricity reserves fall below one million kilowatts.

The Korea Power Exchange and Korea Electric Power Corp. said they cut power when there were 1.49 million kilowatts left in reserve.

However, it later turned out to be wrong, causing more confusion. The actual reserves were just 240,000 kilowatts, way below the level stated, according to the Minister of Knowledge Economy on Sunday.

The manual also states that announcements should be made at least one to two hours before the power outage at the minimum and at least a day before if possible, depending on the situation.

However, no prior alerts were issued to the public or to the media.

Tweeters also criticized the government’s problematic reporting system. Minister of Knowledge Economy Choi Joong-kyung said he received word of the power outages an hour after the electricity cut had already been imposed by KEPCO.

At a session of the National Assembly on Friday the minister said, “There were no specific directions in the manual for giving news to broadcasting corporations.”

Some lashed out at Choi for participating in a dinner hosted by President Lee Myung-bak at the presidential house on Thursday.

A tweeter with ID Pyb04** said, “While all people were in chaos, Minister Choi was at a dinner at Cheong Wa Dae. They must have been out of their minds.”

Many tweeters also posted sarcastic messages targeting the government.

“As a part of steps to appease public anger over the power outage, the government announced Sunday emergency countermeasures: the suspension of seven financially-weak mutual savings banks,” quipped a tweeter with ID “bulkot***.”

Some tweeters also shared desperate cases they experienced during the power outage.

“Minjoom**” said, “My friend gave birth to a baby that day. When she was leaving her apartment to go to hospital due to severe pain, the power was cut. She had to walk down from the 15th floor. However, after seeing the elevator was stuck on the 11th floor, she thought herself lucky not to be caught in there.”