Before Koreans could recover from the Sewol ferry disaster, the accident of Seoul subway line No.2 happened. A few days later, a train went backward on subway line No.1. Because of the continuous accidents, everyone is focusing on the word, ‘safety’. There are many ways to keep safe. However, the best way is prevention. Then, how good is our safety prevention system? What problems does it have? A CBT reporter looked at the Korean safety prevention system. -Ed.

 
Accidents that happened one after another
  Korea is trembling due to the continuing safety accidents. Last April 16th, there was a big accident where the Sewol ferry sank. Because of the accident, many passengers on the ship, including sophomores of Danwon high school, could not escape from the ship. Therefore, among the 476 people, 288 people died, and 16 people are missing. There were many reasons for the sinking of the Sewol ferry. First, 3,608 tons of excessive freight, which is about 3 times the limitation of weight(987 tons), were loaded on the ship. Also, in comparison with the excessive freight, the ballast water, which balances the ship, was only filled with 1/4 of its requirement. Moreover, the survival equipment of the ship didn’t work well.
  Before people could recover from the Sewol disaster’s grief, there was an accident of subway line No.2 on May 2nd. Fortunately, there were no deaths, but about 200 people were injured. The breakdown of a safety-distance device that automatically keeps train intervals more than 200m was the reason for the accident. Thus, Seoul Metro Integrated Control Center, which should get reports from the previous train and announce it to the train behind it, didn’t operate well. Therefore, the latter train couldn’t realize the trouble of the former train.
  There were many different reasons for each accident, but there was something common in the continuous accidents. The safety checks that are supposed to prevent accidents didn’t work well in each accident. In the case of the Sewol ferry, the safety check, which actually takes 15 days, was done in only 2 days in haste. Also, even though the inspector didn’t examine the safety equipment, he filled ‘satisfactory’ on the report. In the case of the subway, Seoul Metro actually implemented 3 safety checks after the day of the Sewol disaster. Nevertheless, there are many opinions that the safety checks might have been done really inattentively because nobody recognized the breakdown of the device for 4 days. If the safety checks and prevention had been done perfectly, none of these accidents would have occurred or the damage could have been reduced.
 
Nominal Accident Prevention Policy
  To prevent accidents beforehand, the government usually creates diverse policies. The original goal is to prevent social confusion and promote safety, but many present policies are not working. Rather, they became the reason for the accidents. Among the many reasons for the Sewol ferry and the subway accidents, there are some that were related with the current laws and policies. If the related laws were made well, they might have been good prevention for both of the accidents.
  Sewol ferry was a 21-year-old, and the deterioration of the vessel became one of the reasons for the sinking. It looks like the ship’s age limit system, which was made to transport passengers safely, didn’t work at all. However, the Lee Myung-bak government amended the limitation of the ship’s age from 25 years to 30 years in a part of the regulatory reform in 2009. In those days, the government thought if the limitation was released, the nation could obtain 25 billion won in economic profit every year. From 2008 to 2012, when it was Lee Myung-bak’s government, ship accidents increased from 68 to 85. Due to the characteristics of passenger ships, an enormous loss of lives can happen in one accident. Therefore, the government should focus on preventing any one accident and not on decreasing the rate of accidents. If an accident happens on old ships, it can cause much more economic loss than the 25 billion economic profits from releasing the ship’s age limitation.
  The ship management system was also the problem. Nowadays, the organization that buys and checks the ships has been divided. A vessel company buys the ships and Korea Register of Shipping(KR) does its regular inspection, such as checking cargo capacity and life-saving equipment. The Ministry of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries issues licenses by evaluating safe sailing, and the Federation of Shipping Associations manages the entire safety inspection. Korea Maritime Police(KMP) supervises safety operators and approves the regulations of safety management that the companies established. Because the tasks are diffuse, responsibility has always been hard to clarify, and general carelessness of their own work happened. In the case of the Sewol ferry, there was corruption in each stage. Cheonghaejin Shipping Company extended the ship excessively for the reason of releasing the ship’s age limitation, and KR approved it. The safety operators, who supervise safety navigation, belonged to the Federation of Shipping Associations, so it was actually hard to supervise correctly. Moreover, because of the lack of professional knowledge, KMP evaluated wrongly about the regulations of sailing. If one institution managed everything, couldn’t it have prevented the Sewol disaster with a precise safety inspection?
  The continuous regulatory reform was another reason for the disaster. Regulations related to ship safety were deregulated a lot last year. First, dangerous goods inspectors were excluded from the education of general transportation safety because they take job training separately. In addition, to enhance sailor’s convenience, severe disciplinary action, such as suspension of operation for less than 3 months, can be replaced with safety education. These kinds of deregulations brought twice as many maritime accidents from 480 in 2008 to 946 in 2011. However, the level of punishment decreased. There was only one revocation of a sailor’s license in 2008, and there were none for the past 5 years.
  The decrepitude of the train and a reduction in labor force were the reasons for the accident of subway line No.2. If there are no problems in the safety inspection, subways have no age limitation. Originally, it was limited to 15 years, but the limitation was increased to 20 years in the 1990s, 25 years in 2009, and finally the limitation was removed in 2012. The train in the recent accident was 25 years old and decrepit, so Seoul Metro is planning to change all of the trains.
  Also, the reduction in the labor force was a reason for the subway accident. Because of a structural reform, Seoul Metro reduced the number of mechanical engineers from 2,642 in 2000 to 2,082 in 2009. Moreover, the manual of maintenance checks changed, so the periods of inspections were extended. Trains that were checked once every 2 months changed to 3 months and once every 4 years changed to 6 years.
 
To prevent further accidents
  To prevent continuous disasters, the government is planning to impose a real-name safety inspection system. By implementing the system, inspectors will have more responsibility, and safety checks will be done much more effectively. In addition, Seoul Metro subway trains will be entirely changed by 2022. Professor Lee Jae-eun(Dept. of Public Administration) said, “Nowadays, the government is focusing on deregulation, but regulations that are related to safety problems must be enforced. The Sewol disaster happened because of many weakened regulations regarding ships. Therefore, safety regulations must be reinforced. Also, it is important that not only safety-related employees but also all people should think about safety as an important thing.”

By Seo Yeo-ryung
yr34@cbnu.ac.kr