Gwangju City Conducts Electrical Safety Inspections to Prevent Fires in Traditional Markets

Gwangju City Hall

[Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Park Seon-gang] Gwangju Metropolitan City announced on the 21st that it will conduct electrical facility safety inspections as part of a comprehensive facility safety management plan, including fire prevention, in traditional markets.

In particular, the city is investing 100 million KRW of city funds to entrust the Gwangju-Jeonnam Regional Headquarters of the Korea Electrical Safety Corporation to carry out professional and systematic safety inspections.

The target includes approximately 1,080 stores with an electrical safety rating of C or below in 25 traditional markets, and the inspections will be conducted from this month until November.

The inspections involve conducting detailed safety checks on the electrical facilities of these stores, and any minor issues or non-compliant facilities that can be addressed on-site during the inspection will be immediately repaired or replaced.

An electrical safety rating of C means that while the facility can still be used, there are certain risk factors present, and repairs or maintenance are needed to improve safety.

Additionally, Gwangju City plans to designate and operate dedicated electrical safety inspectors for each traditional market to prevent disaster accidents and enhance the effectiveness of safety inspections.

The traditional market electrical safety inspectors will consist of 23 private electrical experts, who will be assigned to each market from next month until December and will conduct safety inspections of shared electrical facilities within the markets at least three times a month.

Furthermore, safety education will be provided to raise merchants' awareness of fire risks and strengthen safety consciousness, focusing on electrical safety management tips that are easy to overlook in daily life.

Through this traditional market safety inspection, Gwangju City plans to identify disaster risk factors in advance and build a comprehensive database (DB) based on the inspection results, including the status of electrical facility safety inspections by market, safety inspection ratings by store, major issues pointed out, and whether corrective actions were taken, to be used as data for proactive disaster prevention.

Baek Gwang-chun, Director of the Disaster Prevention Division of the city, said, “To prevent the spread of COVID-19, we plan to thoroughly implement personal hygiene measures such as wearing masks and using hand sanitizers during inspections. Since more than 20% of fires in Gwangju are caused by electrical factors, we will do our best to prevent disaster risks such as fires that may occur in markets and shopping districts through this electrical safety inspection.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.