Gov‘t to designate heat waves as natural disasters

Jul 25, 2018, 09:10 am

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As the record-breaking heat wave continues, residents are resting under the Mapo Bridge at the Han River Park in Seoul on July 22./ Photographed by Song Ui-joo (songuijoo@)

AsiaToday reporter Park Byung-il

The record-breaking heat wave is sweeping across the nation. As President Moon Jae-in stressed the need to include heat wave in the list of natural disasters while chairing a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday, the government is likely to speed up the preparation of comprehensive measures to better protect citizens from heat waves. As a result, a bill to categorize and manage heat waves as a natural disaster is likely to pass the National Assembly next month.

As the government decided to recognize heat waves as natural disasters, it is now only necessary for the National Assembly to revise the Act on the Management of Disasters and Safety to designate heat waves as natural disasters. With rising death toll and damages from prolonged heat waves, the revised bill is highly likely to pass the National Assembly.

The Ministry of the Interior and Safety is planning to include heat waves on the government's natural disaster list as quickly as possible by agreeing four related revised bills currently awaiting parliamentary approval instead of spending time legislating.

According to the ministry, there are four revised bills of the Act on the Management of Disasters and Safety that include designating heat waves as natural disasters.

Three of them were proposed in 2016 by Lee Myung-soo of the Liberty Korea Party, Jung Byung-gook of the Bareunmirae Party, and Kim Doo-kwan of the Democratic Party, respectively. The last one was proposed by Yoon Young-suk of the Liberty Korea Party in 2017.

The ministry expects the related bills to pass by the end of next month. The ministry plans to stress the seriousness of the heat waves and explain the related measures in its report briefing to be held on Wednesday.

According to the ministry on Sunday, there is an internal consensus on including heat waves on the government's list of natural disasters. Therefore, the related bills are highly likely to pass the plenary session.

Once heat waves are designated as a natural disaster, a crisis management standard manual will be prepared from the preventive stage and a system will be set up for local governments for preparations. Besides, there will be legal bases to compensate those suffering damage from heat waves.

Meanwhile, President Moon said in the Cabinet meeting, "I urge you to recognize the prolonged heat wave as a form of special disaster and carefully review related measures." He said that it is now necessary to include heat wave in the list of natural disasters under the Act on the Management of Disasters and Safety. He also called on his government to swiftly draw up a crisis management manual and create basis for damage compensation.

#heat wave #natural disaster #Act on the Management of Disasters and Safety #Moon Jae-in