Foreign Residents Who Couldn't Respond Even After Receiving Emergency Alerts
There are foreign migrants who were unable to evacuate even after receiving emergency alerts. Faced with unfamiliar Korean, they could not understand disaster information — a problem that calls for reflection on how well our society's disaster safety net actually works.
During the 2017 Pohang earthquake, Malika, an Uzbek national in her 40s, received an emergency alert but could recognize barely any words in the Korean text. She only sensed danger after seeing people around her heading outside, and even then she had no idea what was happening or where to go. Since the news and online information were all in Korean, she could not judge for herself about possible aftershocks or evacuation guidance.
Tuan, a Vietnamese migrant worker in his 30s, faced a similar situation when he received an alert about a wildfire. He knew a fire had broken out, but the unfamiliar names of administrative districts on his screen gave him no way to be sure whether the Miryang farm where he worked was in an evacuation zone. He looked up a map and contacted coworkers and his employer, but could not get answers right away.
The government has been working to improve foreigners' access to disaster information. In February 2024, the Ministry of the Interior and Safety announced it would overhaul standard alert wording and the dispatch system so that emergency and urgent disaster alerts include key information — such as the disaster type and earthquake magnitude — in English alongside Korean. The Emergency Ready disaster safety app for foreigners also expanded its language support from 3 to 22 languages starting June 15 this year. The ministry explained that about 97 percent of the roughly 2.87 million foreign residents in Korea can now receive disaster and safety information in their own language.
However, according to Interior Ministry data released by the office of Rep. Park Ju-min of the Democratic Party of Korea on the National Assembly's Public Administration and Security Committee, new downloads of Emergency Ready fell 41.6 percent from 33,309 in 2024 to 19,465 in 2025, and numbered only 12,070 in the first eight months of this year. Monthly active users hover between 1,754 and 3,234 — roughly one per 1,000 foreign residents, compared with the 2.61 to 2.86 million foreigners living in Korea.
Multilingual alert dispatch figures also showed wide variation across languages. English accounted for 402,189 messages, or 75.7 percent of the total, while Vietnamese came to 2,853 (0.5 percent), Uzbek 786 (0.1 percent), Khmer 806 (0.2 percent), and Nepali 558 (0.1 percent). Last October, Hamyang County held a fire evacuation drill for foreign seasonal workers. That same year, at the 'Multicultural Family 119 Safety Experience Day' held at the Gyeongnam Safety Experience Center in Yongju-myeon, Hapcheon County, multicultural families received hands-on outdoor earthquake training, and tailored safety education for vulnerable groups is run year-round.
Safety education has also been provided through programs supporting foreign residents' adaptation to local communities. According to South Gyeongsang Province, 20,107 foreign workers took part in programs in nine cities and counties last year, with a total budget of 433 million won. As part of this, Hamyang County provided Korean language, fire safety, basic living, and cultural education for 44 seasonal workers.
The Gyeongnam Provincial Police Agency also announced in June that it would run year-round tailored crime prevention education for foreign seasonal workers, children from migrant backgrounds, and foreign employers, covering assault and human rights abuse prevention as well as responses to voice phishing and drug crimes. The training is delivered on-site, based on demand assessments centered on areas with large foreign populations.
