A 5-year-old autistic boy was found dead in a lake in Seoul Olympic Park one day after disappearing from a children’s play cafe in the park on Saturday. Internet users have lashed out at the lack of security cameras in the park.

According to the Seoul Songpa Police Sunday, the boy was reported missing around 2:20 p.m. on Saturday by his mother who had accompanied him to the kids’ cafe. 

The mother realized the boy was missing 30 minutes after she last saw him. The last record of him, recorded on a CCTV camera in the kids’ cafe, shows the boy running barefoot out the front entrance.

Despite an immediate police search that combed the premises, the boy was found drowned in the nearby lake the next day at around 9:30 a.m. 

Due to the complete lack of CCTV cameras around the lake in which the boy’s body was found, the police are unable to discern whether the boy accidentally lost his footing or if some external force killed him.

A total of 447 surveillance cameras are reportedly installed in the Olympic Park, however, 90 percent are placed inside sports stadiums and within the buildings on the premises.

Some 50 cameras installed around the circumference are mostly in the parking lots, prompting the public to criticize the park’s lax security.

Some are claiming more CCTV could have aided in a faster discovery of the missing boy’s whereabouts.

The Olympic Park in Seoul is approximately 1.45 million square-meters in size.

The police are contemplating an autopsy to learn the details of the boy’s death, however, the bereaved family is said to be opposing any damage to the child’s body.

By Lim Jeong-yeo (kaylalim@heralcorp.com)