Air Raid Sirens In South Korea

Yesterday, the 15th of December, as happens every month on the 15th, unless the 15th falls on a weekend, there was an air raid drill at 2PM to allow South Koreans to practice what they would do in the event of a North Korean invasion. Civil defense sirens go off monthly in Korea and the first time you hear them, you might wonder what is going on.

The first time I heard them, they made me think of the tornado sirens I heard growing up in Ohio. But, they’re a bit different. Here’s what you should know about the air raid sirens you hear in Korea every month. 

Air raid siren warnings happen monthly in Seoul, Korea. Here is what to know:

• Is it dangerous to live in South Korea?
• When are civil defense drills in Korea?
• What is a civil defense drill like in Korea?
• Seoul drills in my experience
  • Are we at war?
  • Sitting outside? Head indoors now!
  • The Internet explodes

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Is it dangerous to live in South Korea?

Not if you ask a Korean… though news Stateside might lead you to believe otherwise. When there are missiles or some aggressive act, on either side by the way, locals are pretty hard to scare. They go about their daily business like business as usual. What do we really know about North Korea? A lot and very little at the same time and I’m sure both governments, South Korean and American, know more than the general public anyway. So, there are air raid sirens and we’re supposed to practice for a possible invasion of some kind.

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When are civil defense drills in Korea?

Civil defense drills take place on the 15th of each month unless the 15th falls on a weekend and in that case it happens on Monday. It occurs at 2:00pm on that day.

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What is a civil defense drill like in Korea?

When the air raid sirens start to blast, public service people step out on the streets directing people to the nearest bomb shelters, ie nearby basements and subway stations. Of course as happens every month a new foreigner to the region freaks out at the sound of these sirens and stories across the net abound. Do not worry. These are just drills much like those tornado drills in Ohio when I was a kid. 

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Seoul drills in my experience

Are we at war?

Looking back at my first year, I was living in Songpa which is on the Southeast side of Seoul pretty far out on the purple subway line. The first time I heard a siren it sounded very reminiscent of the tornado sirens I had grown up listening to in Ohio and I found it odd to think tornadoes also struck Korea. Just as I was wondering how often tornadoes hit Seoul two fighter jets went racing across the sky out my very large bedroom window. They were very low and having grown up near the Wright Patterson Air force Base seeing a fighter jet was nothing new.

However, unlike Ohio where there is a law about how low and how fast a jet can be flying near residential areas since they are not supposed to hit the sound barrier over neighborhoods, these jets were doing just that, and just over our apartments. This was not a good sign to me.

The last time I saw fighter jets flying that fast and that low and breaking the sound barrier was September 11th in the US when Wright Patt. fighter jets were out patrolling the skies and they were landing all of the planes. The only plane to fly over Ohio at that time was the Presidential airplane and fighter jets were breaking the sound barrier over our houses so that the President’s plane could have all the space it needed to fly. Having that as my last memory of a very similar situation of course I jumped to the conclusion that North and South Korea were going at it once again and I was in the middle of it and I had only just come to Korea a month earlier. Just my luck.

Exiting my apartment I saw no one on the street and no one running around worried so this led me to the secondary conclusion that everyone else knew the evacuation route except me and I had already missed the boat. Calling friends and teachers I found this was not what I had concluded through observation but was a drill that happened every month and was in fact very similar to our tornado drills back home.

Sitting outside? Head indoors now!

The second time I wasn’t at work when the drill took place I was in Jamsil sitting outside of a cafe with two Korean friends. The sirens went off and out of no where people up and down the street with yellow sashes halting pedestrians and moving them to safe zones. I’ve often wondered since then how many Koreans are just walking around with these yellow sashes in their bags so they can do their duty if North Korea strikes. How else would it work if they weren’t always carrying around these sashes so that people could easily see who to follow on every other day except drill day?

They came to us and since we were sitting outside of the cafe they told us we’d have to move in because there was to be absolutely no one on the sidewalk. The traffic halted and even though the lights turned to green, no one moved. This was another thing I didn’t really understand. If all of the traffic across Seoul just halts how are any emergency vehicles or military trucks supposed to get through. At the very least shouldn’t they be directing the traffic to park?

Alas, everything was only explained in Korean and at the time I couldn’t speak or understand much, except to say I was hungry or tired and hello and thank you, which wasn’t helping me in this situation, so I just followed the womans waving arms and moved indoors. Fifteen minutes later everything was back to normal and just as suddenly as they had appeared the yellow sash adorned Koreans disappeared into the crowds.

The Internet explodes

Since then I have found it amusing to sign on to Facebook when these drills occur to see the rants and questions of the newbies who have just come to Korea. Some of them I respond to with calming words and explaining the normalcy of this and others I just watch as their comments from people back home fill up with worry. It’s amusing and at the same time slightly annoying that there still is yet to be a section in training when people first get here about this.

There should be more comments on foreign websites and places to go so that foreigners already have an expectation. Koreans are so desensitized to this that most of them don’t even stop what they’re doing. They stay inside and go about their business. In the event of an actual attack I think more people would respond to the news on the TV than the siren they here.

I suppose it’s the same back in Ohio when a tornado strikes. I would hear the siren on an off day, not the normal first Monday of the month and instead of assuming that a tornado was coming first off I would go to the window and check the sky. Was it grey? Was it yellow? Were there warning signs to take this siren seriously? Or, was it just an accident by the guy in charge? I guess if the day comes in Korea for an off day of sirens I’ll probably do the same thing.

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