Residents walk with parasols on a street in Seongsu-dong, Seoul, on Friday, when the city's high temperature surpassed 40 degrees Celsius. [Yonhap]
Residents walk with parasols on a street in Seongsu-dong, Seoul, on Friday, when the city's high temperature surpassed 40 degrees Celsius. [Yonhap]

Nineteen of the 23 people who have died from heat-related illness in South Korea this year — 82 percent — were aged 65 or older, prompting the government to strengthen protective measures for vulnerable groups.

The Ministry of Interior and Safety's Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters said Saturday the government will push ahead with a response framework focused on preventing casualties among the elderly.

The headquarters said it would establish emergency response units at the Ministry of Health and Welfare, the Ministry of Employment and Labor and the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs to begin sector-by-sector action.

The Ministry of Health and Welfare will expand on-site monitoring of elderly people living alone and broaden support for cooling supplies, while also conducting ongoing inspections of senior community centers. The Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs will visit elderly farmers to distribute cooling supplies and provide mobile medical services through rural doctor-visit buses. The Ministry of Employment and Labor will inspect workplaces particularly vulnerable to extreme heat — including construction sites and logistics centers — to verify compliance with work-suspension orders issued under heat wave advisories.

The headquarters plans to convene a "heat wave disaster response headquarters meeting" with relevant ministries on Sunday to conduct a comprehensive review of each ministry's response and discuss additional measures in preparation for a prolonged heat wave.

Yun Ho-jung, head of the headquarters and minister of interior and safety, said the government would "concentrate all administrative capacity to ensure heat wave countermeasures operate without gaps on the ground, with the headquarters coordinating closely with relevant ministries and local governments amid the extreme heat." He added that the government would "activate a pan-government, all-out response system with protecting the lives and safety of the public as the top priority."


arin@heraldcorp.com