"Why No Special Report During Flood Disaster?" Growing Complaints About KBS Disaster Broadcast

On the 23rd, firefighters who responded to a report at the flooded No. 1 Underpass near Busan Station in Busan Metropolitan City rescued people trapped inside. A total of three people died in the incident. / Photo by Yonhap News

[Asia Economy Reporter Lim Ju-hyung] KBS, the broadcaster in charge of disaster broadcasting, has been accused of neglecting disaster broadcasts during the severe heavy rain in the Busan area.

On the 24th, a petition titled "Do not collect license fees in Busan" was posted on the KBS official website's viewer petition board. The petitioner wrote, "It is raining in Busan right now, almost all roads are flooded, and buildings are filled with water, but the news only covers one or two segments and then stops," criticizing, "I do not feel any value from the license fees at all." As of 7:30 PM that day, the petition had received 536 endorsements.

In addition, netizens expressed dissatisfaction by posting comments on the board such as "Is this really a disaster broadcasting station?" and "There is flooding in Gyeongnam and Busan, but why is there no special report?"

KBS was also criticized last year for failing to fulfill its responsibility for disaster broadcasting when a large wildfire occurred in Gangwon-do and the Korea Forest Service issued a level 3 response.

KBS Yeouido Building / Photo by Yonhap News

At that time, KBS issued a special report only about an hour after the level 3 alert was issued, and after broadcasting the special report for about 10 minutes, aired the program "Tonight Kim Je-dong."

As the controversy grew, KBS promised to fully review and significantly improve the disaster broadcasting system by activating a task force (TF), but the same controversy has arisen again in just one year.

KBS explained that it reported according to the disaster broadcast response stages in response to the controversy.

KBS stated, "From 9 AM the previous day, we started broadcasting a 'lower scroll' subtitle corresponding to disaster broadcast level 1, which has continued until now," and "From 10:20 PM, we broadcast data subtitles on the upper right corner of the TV screen to convey the status of special alerts issued in each region."

Meanwhile, according to the Korea Meteorological Administration, the heavy rain that fell overnight on the 23rd recorded 81.6 mm per hour, marking the 10th highest rainfall since 1920. In particular, after the heavy rain warning was issued, about 200 mm of concentrated rain fell over three hours in most areas of Busan, causing flooding damage in several locations.

At around 10:30 PM that day, water rose up to 2.5 meters in the No. 1 underground passage near Busan Station, resulting in an accident where three people died.

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