Gangneung City Launches 24-Hour Emergency Response System for a Safe and Comfortable Holiday

City to Implement "2026 Lunar New Year Holiday Comprehensive Plan"
Intensive Management of Eight Key Areas Including Disaster Response, Medical Services, and Prices

Gangneung City in Gangwon Province (Mayor Kim Hongkyu) announced on the 11th that it will implement the “2026 Lunar New Year Holiday Comprehensive Plan” so that citizens can spend a safe and comfortable holiday during the upcoming Lunar New Year.

View of Gangneung City Hall.

The city will operate a comprehensive situation room from the 14th to the 18th, the Lunar New Year holiday period, and plans to focus on managing eight areas closely related to daily life, including safety management, health and medical services, price stabilization, transportation, and cleaning management.

To ensure that citizens and visitors returning to their hometowns can spend the holiday safely, the city will operate the Disaster and Safety Situation Room 24 hours a day and strengthen on-site responses to disaster situations such as fires, cold waves, and heavy snowfall. In particular, to prepare for the heightened risk of forest fires due to dry weather, it will maintain a 24-hour emergency contact system in the Forest Fire Situation Room, and during the holiday period it will thoroughly conduct inspections and snow removal in sections vulnerable to snow removal and road icing in response to cold waves.

For a clean Gangneung, the city will operate a Cleaning Comprehensive Situation Room and a mobile response team to promptly respond to civil complaints related to waste. In particular, to ensure efficient waste collection, waste generated during the holiday period can be put out starting on the evening of the 18th and will be collected all at once from the 19th.

To ease the burden of rising prices, the city will operate a Price Countermeasure Comprehensive Situation Room, monitor price trends of major seasonal goods, and strengthen price monitoring of 20 key items of agricultural, livestock, and forestry products designated as priority management items.

For emergency medical services during the holiday period, the city will maintain a 24-hour emergency treatment system at four general medical institutions within the jurisdiction (Gangneung Asan Hospital, Gangneung Medical Center, Gangneung Dongin Hospital, and Gangneung Goryeo Hospital), and 117 clinics and hospitals and 41 pharmacies will also be in operation to minimize any gaps in medical care.

The city plans to establish strict discipline in the public service by operating an inspection team consisting of 14 members in 4 units, targeting the main city hall, affiliated offices, and eup, myeon, and dong administrative units.

Mayor Kim Hongkyu of Gangneung said, “With the proclamation of ‘2026–2027 Visit Gangneung Years’ as a starting point, our city has begun its leap forward as a high-quality tourist city loved by people across the nation,” adding, “This Lunar New Year holiday comprehensive plan goes beyond simply resolving inconveniences and will serve as an opportunity to firmly imprint Gangneung’s core values of ‘cleanliness, kindness, and integrity’ on visitors returning home and tourists.”

He continued, “I ask citizens to join in creating a clean Gangneung by keeping sincere promises, such as refraining from putting out garbage on Lunar New Year’s Day itself. The city will concentrate its administrative capacity during the holiday period and do its utmost to make Gangneung a kind and safe city that everyone will want to visit again.”

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