- First comprehensive exercise since high-speed rail integration tests derailment, fire response and other emerging disaster scenarios on Suseo–Pyeongtaek corridor
Korea Railroad Corporation, known as Korail, will conduct comprehensive emergency response drills at rail sites across the country to prepare for evolving disaster scenarios, including extreme rainfall and battery fires.
The state railway operator announced Wednesday that it will hold its first on-site comprehensive drill since the integration of high-speed rail services at Pyeongtaek-Jije Station on the Suseo high-speed line on Oct. 28.
The drill scenarios were drawn from recent domestic and international disaster cases and their potential impact on rail operations, covering lithium battery fires, dam and river flooding, earthquakes, and wildfire-induced communications failures.
The core exercise will verify whether emergency response procedures and inter-agency coordination under the unified safety management system — established after the high-speed rail integration — function properly on the Suseo–Pyeongtaek corridor.
Simulating a scenario in which a high-speed train derails and a fire breaks out from a passenger's portable battery, the drill will run through the entire incident response sequence: broadcasting the situation and controlling train operations, evacuating passengers and conducting rescue operations, suppressing the lithium battery fire, restoring the derailed train and damaged facilities, and resuming service.
The exercise will be conducted jointly with Pyeongtaek City Hall, the Pyeongtaek fire department and the Pyeongtaek police, with university students, community disaster prevention volunteers and auxiliary firefighters also taking part in the evacuation and rescue drills.
Separate scenario-specific drills will also take place at three rail sites nationwide. A comprehensive flood-response drill simulating heavy rainfall will be held at Gacheon Station in Daegu on Thursday. An earthquake preparedness drill is scheduled at Yeosu Expo Station on Oct. 29, followed by a communications-failure exercise simulating a large-scale wildfire at the Gangneung vehicle facility on Nov. 11.
In addition, Korail plans to conduct multilingual emergency announcement and evacuation drills at Seoul Station, Gimpo Airport Station and Busan Station in response to the growing number of foreign rail passengers.
kwonhl@heraldcorp.com
