Yongsan-gu to Hold Heavy Rain and Crowd Crush Disaster Response Drill at Yongsan Station GTX-B Construction Site on the 20th

National Safe Korea Exercise for Disaster Response

A complex disaster-response drill simulating a scenario in which damage from torrential rain and wind gusts coincides with a crowd crush will be held at a large-scale railway construction site. Yongsan-gu, Seoul (Mayor Kim Gyeong-dae), said it will conduct the “2026 National Safe Korea Exercise” with Korea National Railway and other related organizations at the Section 1 construction site of the Great Train eXpress (GTX)-B line at Yongsan Station at 2 p.m. on October 20.

Provided by Yongsan-gu.

About 400 people from Yongsan-gu, Korea National Railway, fire and police departments, and civic groups will take part, reviewing every stage of the response as if it were a real emergency, from the initial response through on-site management and recovery. The district said it chose the site because the large number of workers and construction equipment there could increase the risk of casualties and secondary accidents. The drill will assess step-by-step response procedures, including incident alerts, evacuation, rescue, emergency medical care, and facility recovery, as well as coordination among participating organizations.

The exercise will consist of a discussion-based drill and a field drill. During the discussion-based drill, the district office’s Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters will be activated and hold a situation assessment meeting to review the actions assigned to each working group and coordination among departments. During the field drill, the Integrated Support Headquarters at the Disaster Site will coordinate resident evacuations, emergency medical care, victim support, and safety measures for facilities, while also reviewing the mobilization of personnel and equipment.

The site and the district office’s Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters will be connected by video to broadcast the exercise in real time. This will allow them to check whether decisions are quickly translated into on-site action and whether requests for support from the site are accurately relayed to the relevant organizations.

Participants will include Korea National Railway’s GTX Headquarters, Yongsan Fire Station, Yongsan Police Station, Korea Electric Power Corporation, the Korean Red Cross, and the Disaster Medical Assistance Team (DMAT) of Soonchunhyang University Seoul Hospital. Civic groups, including the Yongsan-gu Volunteer Disaster Prevention Corps, volunteer firefighters, and the public participants’ group for the National Safe Korea Exercise, will also take part.

After the exercise, the district plans to hold an evaluation meeting with an assessment team recommended by the Ministry of the Interior and Safety to identify shortcomings and areas for improvement, and to update its disaster response manuals and exercise scenarios.

Yongsan-gu Mayor Kim Gyeong-dae said, “We will carefully check whether each organization’s role and coordination system are working properly,” adding, “We will address the shortcomings identified so that we can protect residents’ lives and property in an actual disaster.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.