Government was Nowhere Near Blizzard

The government faces bitter criticism from the public for its overall absence of a prevention system against natural disasters that has led to huge damages paralyzing the nation’s major expressways, the Kyongbu Expressway and the Chungbu Expressway, which were caused by the heavy snowfalls.

Seoul and Gyeonggi provincial areas had a blizzard from the afternoon of March 4, and the middle part of the nation additionally was hit by heavy snow the next day, causing severe losses. Nonetheless, government agencies began to take action presided over by the Prime Minister Goh Kun as late as the morning of March 6, only after the snow has almost stopped.

In the emergency meeting, Prime Minister Goh reportedly reprimanded the related officials’ tardiness at the beginning, saying they lacked professionalism and expertise with unsystematic and inactive countermeasures that made the belated snow removing works eventually turn out to be useless.

Furthermore, the Korea Highway Corporation (KHC) that operates the nation’s highways failed to issue swift and appropriate measures against the disaster. Although it was forecast for accidents and paralyzed traffic on highways due to the heavy snowfalls, the agency just started traffic controls eight hours later, worsening the situation and giving a bigger burden to drivers.

The Grand National Party and the Millennium Democratic Party decided to ask for the accounts to the related agencies - the Ministry of Administration, the Ministry of Construction and Traffic and the KHC- because their belated reactions seem to be the main cause for paralyzed highways and financial losses.

Meanwhile, the National Disaster Prevention and Countermeasures Headquarters announced that the latest blizzard has caused damage to 54 buildings, 1,875 hectares of greenhouses, 2,716 livestock farms, 53 fisheries and some ginseng cultivating houses. The total loss amounts to 4,368 facilities and 335 billion won in property nationwide as of March 7 at 3:00 p.m.

Some severely hit areas, however, are still hard to access and the aggregate sum of loss is likely to extend as the damaged spots will be additionally taken into account.

Among 1,595 elementary, middle and high schools across the nation having undergone a temporary day off on March 6, most schools are expected to be back on normal operation starting today, except for some schools located in Nonsan city and Chungyang county in Chungnam province and Sangju city in Kyungnam province.

Meanwhile, president of the KHC Oh Jum-rok announced his resignation on March 7.

The resigning president said that he would take a full responsibility as a chief of highways management for the problems caused to the citizens, no matter whether it was the unexpected natural disaster in the last 100 years.

Oh transferred to the first reserve as a major general at 1997 and went through the position of an assistant vice-minister of Ministry of National Defense, a director of the planning and management division and a head of the Military Manpower Administration, before taking office as a president of the KHC in June 2001.