Seoul's Seongbuk-gu has convened an emergency heat wave response meeting chaired by District Mayor Lee Seung-ro, mobilizing comprehensive safety measures for residents in line with the Ministry of Interior and Safety's Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters activation of Emergency Level 2.
With temperatures exceeding 35 degrees Celsius persisting across the country, the headquarters raised the heat response level to Emergency Level 2 at 1 p.m. Sunday. The Greater Seoul area may also face its first major heat wave alert, partly due to the influence of a typhoon, and high temperatures are expected to continue for now, making a strengthened disaster response system urgently necessary.
In response, Seongbuk-gu will establish a round-the-clock situation management system centered on the director of the integrated operations center, organizing a daily operations room with three units — an overall heat wave response team, a welfare countermeasures team, and an energy and facility countermeasures team. The deputy district mayor will chair daily review meetings to continuously monitor progress across departments.
The district is conducting welfare checks on more than 10,200 vulnerable residents — including elderly people living alone, people with disabilities, and those with chronic illnesses — through in-person visits, phone calls, and IoT monitoring systems.
The district is also operating 270 cooling shelters across the area and will flexibly extend the hours of neighborhood community centers into the evening when a heat wave advisory is in effect.
Lifestyle-focused measures to prevent heat-related illness among residents are being expanded and reinforced. The district is reviewing plans to increase the frequency of road water-spraying vehicles, which currently operate three times a day, to help ease the urban heat island effect.
In addition, the district will conduct thorough checks on the operational status of heat-reduction facilities, including shade structures, cooling fog systems and smart rest shelters.
Proactive heat illness prevention measures are also being rolled out for outdoor workers and elderly residents participating in job programs. The district will inspect whether worker rest areas have been set up at outdoor worksites such as redevelopment project sites, verify compliance with designated rest periods, and check adherence to the three key heatstroke prevention guidelines, while strengthening on-site safety education.
Large electric fans will be added at the Seongbuk Culture Vacance water play areas — located at the Uicheon multipurpose plaza and an idle site in Gireum-dong — as well as at three park water play areas at Odong Neighborhood Park and Jangseok and Kkumnara children's parks. The district plans to step up promotional outreach for these facilities while ensuring that on-site safety personnel are fully protected against heat-related illness.
The district also directed agencies to conduct safety inspections of energy facilities, establish contingency systems for power outages, and share real-time information on heat-vulnerable areas through a mobile operations center linking the city, district and fire department, strengthening inter-agency cooperation.
"The relentless heat and tropical nights are threatening the health and safety of our residents," District Mayor Lee said. "We will spare no effort to prevent casualties by carefully checking every corner of the district — from welfare checks on vulnerable residents to protecting outdoor workers and keeping heat-reduction facilities in operation."
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