Power Outage Dampened Warnings by TV Broadcasting

Warnings issued by TV broadcasting were tested for about three hours from 12: 00 a.m. Saturday with the arrival of typhoon Maemi in the Gyeongsang area including Busan and Daegu. But the test failed because of the power blackout in the region.

The warnings by TV broadcasting are one of the ways for broadcasting emergency situations to residents. With the system, TVs are automatically switched on in areas where natural disasters such as typhoons or floods occur or are expected occur in late night hours when few people watch TVs. If a set-top box is installed in a TV, it is automatically turned on with its channel tuned in to KBS 1, the main broadcasting station of emergency situations, with the start of the broadcasting to warn residents against disasters.

The Central Disaster Prevention and Countermeasures Headquarters spent 560 million won in the government budget until last year to install set-top boxes on TVs at around 4000 township offices nationwide. Among them, 250 TVs in Gyeongsang area were tested for their operation. But the TVs could not be used at all in many places due to power outage caused by strong winds and massive downpours, which has left many people to argue against the usefulness of the TVs.

An official at the anti-disaster headquarters said that it is more desirable for home appliance makers to make TVs embedded with receptors for emergency broadcastings to promote the disaster warning system by TVs.

kathycho@donga.com