Seoul City "Shared Itaewon Disaster Victims' Contact Information with Ministry of the Interior and Safety"

[Asia Economy Reporter Lee Jung-yoon] The Seoul Metropolitan Government announced that it shared the contact information of the victims' families from the Itaewon disaster with the Ministry of the Interior and Safety three times two days after the disaster. This contradicts the earlier statement by Minister of the Interior and Safety Lee Sang-min, who claimed that the Seoul Metropolitan Government did not hand over the list of victims' families due to personal information protection.

Kim Sang-han, Director of Welfare Policy at the Seoul Metropolitan Government, said at the National Assembly's Special Committee on the Itaewon Disaster Investigation on the 29th, "We shared the status data of the deceased, which included the contact information of the victims' families, with the Ministry of the Interior and Safety."

He added, "The Seoul Metropolitan Government did not contact the bereaved families individually but organized the identity of the deceased and the contact information of the victims' families at the funeral hall, then compiled the status data of the deceased and shared it with the Ministry of the Interior and Safety."

[Image source=Yonhap News]

When Kwon Chil-seung, a member of the Democratic Party of Korea, said, "The minister told the staff to check, and when the statement that the Ministry of the Interior and Safety did not have the list of victims' families became an issue in the National Assembly, they said they thoroughly searched," Director Kim explained, "We accurately submitted the data three times starting from October 31."

Previously, on the 16th of last month, Minister Lee stated at the National Assembly regarding the Itaewon disaster, "The Ministry of the Interior and Safety does not have the list of victims' families," and at the on-site investigation of the Special Committee on the 27th of this month, he also claimed, "The Seoul Metropolitan Government did not hand over the list due to personal information protection."

Regarding this, Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon said, "I saw the disputed data yesterday, and the title was 'List of the Deceased,' and although there were contact numbers, many cases did not have names," adding, "It seems there was a misunderstanding."

On this day, the Special Committee also raised suspicions that Yongsan-gu falsely reported the first recognition time of the Itaewon disaster more than 20 minutes late.

Additionally, it was confirmed that four Yongsan-gu office employees, including Park Hee-young, the head of Yongsan-gu, replaced their mobile phones after the disaster. Earlier, the police special investigation headquarters found evidence that Park replaced his mobile phone before the investigation and deleted electronic information stored on the previous phone, and Park was detained on suspicion of evidence tampering.

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