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An underground parking garage in Pyeongtaek, South Korea, doubles as an emergency shelter, according to this sign pictured at the site on Wednesday, July 5, 2023. (David Choi/Stars and Stripes)
CAMP HUMPHREYS, South Korea — People in South Korea can now use their smartphones to find one of the roughly 17,000 bomb shelters throughout the country in the event of a North Korean attack.
South Korean tech companies Naver and Kakao Corp. on Friday started listing the addresses of bomb shelters, or civil defense shelters, on map applications available on Apple or Android devices, according to a July 1 news release from the Ministry of the Interior and Safety.
People may search Kakao Maps for “civil defense shelter” in English and Korean. As of Wednesday, Naver Maps only supported those searches in Korean.
Google Maps, which is not widely used in South Korea, did not list bomb shelters as of Wednesday.
Shelters across South Korea can be found in places like subway stations, underground parking garages and shopping mall basements. The ministry advised people to search for their nearest shelter if air raid sirens are sounded.
“People came to find locations of civil defense shelters more easily through map apps and [government websites] now,” Vice Interior Minister Han Chang-seob said in the release. “We will do our best to provide a more convenient service to the people and maintain the safety of the public through the government’s implementation of a digital platform."
The update comes five weeks after the Interior and Safety Ministry issued phone alerts and sounded air-raid sirens in Seoul after North Korea launched what it claimed was a military spy satellite. A subsequent message indicated that the warning was made in error.
North Korea’s launch ended in failure after the launch vehicle flew in an abnormal pattern before plunging into the Yellow Sea, or the West Sea, about 100 miles south of Seoul, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff told reporters at the time.
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