“Nothing changed compared to Daegu subway disaster 11 years ago”

By Jeong Ji-su

There has been no improvement since the Daegu subway tragedy 11 years ago, Nocut News quoted the victims’ families as saying Sunday.

“Sewol ferry boat disaster is almost the same as what happened 11 years ago,” said the subway disaster’s bereaved family member, surnamed Jeon.

Daegu subway tragedy in 2003 resulted in 192 dead and 300 wounded while Sewol ferry boat disaster brought about 188 dead and 144 missing. They are similar in many ways.

When the subway engineer entered the platform back, he left the scene with the master key after hearing the control room’s order to wait, locking all the passengers inside. In 2014, Sewol ferry’s captain left the scene first after announcing all the passengers to wait indoors.

The way the two disasters counted the total number of victims is also similar. There were a lot of changes in the counting process.

The rescuing process was also inadequate for both incidents. Daegu city officials cleaned the burnt down subway carriage even before the DNA checking process was completed. In the case of Sewol ferry, the government started to search for missing passengers four days after the sinking.

The absence of disaster education was similar for both incidents. The crew on board and on the train all turned out to be uneducated for disaster plans.

Jeon asserted that instead of blaming the individuals in the disaster, we should think of this incident to check up the whole disaster rescue system.