Only 2 percent of newly built schools in South Korea are earthquake-resistant, a lawmaker said Monday, raising fresh concerns about public safety following a series of deadly accidents across the country.
Of 1,671 schools built after 2012, only 36 are designed to withstand earthquakes, Rep. Park Hae-ja of the main opposition party, the New Politics Alliance for Democracy said, citing data from the Education Ministry.
Those schools are all located outside the capital area, with 24 in the southwestern South Jeolla Province, seven in the southeastern South Gyeongsang Province and five in the southwestern North Jeolla Province, Park said.
Under a new law that went into effect in February 2012, all new schools must be built to be quake-resistant. However, the central disaster management agency has yet to set standards for seismic design, leading some local education offices to draw up their own.
Only schools under the jurisdiction of those offices were built to be quake-resistant, the lawmaker said.
“The fact that there is still no standard for seismic design shows clearly that our society is insensitive to safety,” she said.
“Following the Sewol disaster, the government shouldn’t simply talk about safety but properly look into seismic designs for schools and other areas that have been overlooked.”
The 6,825-ton ferry Sewol sank off the country’s southwest coast on April 16, leaving more than 300 people dead or missing.
Critics argue that the government’s poor initial response to the disaster contributed to the high death toll.
Earlier this month, more than two dozen people were killed or seriously injured after a ventilation shaft covered with poorly supported steel grates collapsed under the weight of people standing on it during a concert in Seongnam, a satellite city just outside of Seoul. (Yonhap)
koreaherald@heraldcorp.com
