Traffic Accidents Decrease by 40% During Lunar New Year Holiday... Sexual Violence Cases in Seoul Double (Comprehensive)

The National Police Agency announced on the 12th that 112 emergency calls decreased by 6.7% compared to last year as a result of implementing special crime prevention measures during this year's Lunar New Year holiday.

According to the National Police Agency, the average daily number of 112 calls during the Lunar New Year holiday from the 9th to the 11th was 43,298, which is 6.7% lower than the average daily calls of 43,394 during last year's Lunar New Year holiday from January 21 to 24.

On the 8th, one day before the Lunar New Year holiday, the full-scale homecoming battle began as vehicles crowded the southbound lanes toward Busan on the Seoul Gyeongbu Expressway, causing traffic congestion. Photo by Jo Yongjun jun21@

In particular, traffic accidents during the Lunar New Year holiday averaged 193 cases per day, a 41.1% decrease compared to 327.8 cases last year. The average daily number of traffic accident injuries also dropped by 42.9% to 311.7 people, and fatalities decreased by 40.4% to 2.7 people. Traffic accidents in the Seoul area also decreased by 44% to 28 cases, with injuries down 51.6% to 39 people compared to last year.

Earlier, from the 1st of this month until the day of the announcement, the police deployed special forces to multi-use facilities such as airports and train stations and conducted joint patrols with autonomous crime prevention teams.

As a result, 16 violent criminals using weapons were arrested, and 3,392 domestic violence offenders were apprehended. Additionally, monitoring was conducted on 8,666 households where domestic violence recurrence was a concern.

The Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency also reported that the average daily occurrence of the five major crimes (murder, robbery, sexual violence, theft, and assault) in its jurisdiction during this year's Lunar New Year holiday was 77 cases, a 3.8% decrease from 80 cases last year. However, the average daily number of sexual violence cases during the holiday period was 4.7, more than double last year's 2.3 cases.

The National Police Agency stated, "Even after the special crime prevention activities conclude, we will concentrate all our efforts to restore peaceful daily life to the public."

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