Is Economic Efficiency More Important than Safety?
   After 18th century, the capitalism was accepted as a matter of course and capital assets became significant aspects of our lives. As people thought money as a symbol of power, society has been gripped by crude materialism. It led people to focus on efficiency and competition rather than other aspects. One of the things is the safety of people. Citizens are exposed to danger which is hidden behind the fancy civilization. There are several reasons that unregulated capitalism is dangerous. First, it becomes hazardous when the government loosens too many safety regulations. Sometimes, the government cuts lots of safety related restrictions to encourage enterprises to easily enter the marketplace. Then, those companies can reduce the cost which is inevitable for safety. For example, one of the main reasons for the sinking of the Sewol was the immoderate remodeling. The government allowed the company to remodel the ferry and to import an old ship built over 30 years ago. To vitalize the ferry business, Lee Myung-bak who was the former president, loosened regulations. Hence, Chonghaejin could remodel the old ship to make more money and deceive passengers. Small changes to the safety related regulations could bring tragedy. Safety laws are the most significant thing that enterprises have to keep very carefully. The administration should not loosen the rules in order to make a profit by it. Above and beyond, companies need to keep and follow the basic rules of safety guidelines and find other strategies to produce extra outputs. Second, only pursuing the profits can lead to improper construction. When entrepreneurs are blind with money, they would possibly use the cheap and improper of materials. Furthermore, they would be indifferent to the execution of maintenances which can be the last step to prevent disasters.
   In 1995, the Sampoong Department store totally fell down. As a result of it, 502 people died, 937 people badly injured and unfortunately 6 people were still missing. This accident was started by careless human errors and inhumane actions. The high-ranking officials knew the building would be demolished, but the only action they took was running away in advance. There were several problems apart from that. The site was not an appropriate place for the department store because it was originally designed for residential areas. Therefore, when the police and architecture experts investigated the problems of shoddy construction, there were bunch of things that Sampoong had demolished. In addition, one more floor at the top was constructed without permission and columns were missed in order to have more space. Ironically, there were signs before the building was broken down; however, the board of directors did not do anything for guarantee the safety of customers. This case could be a typical case that how pursuing only money can be dangerous. Safety of the people should not be hidden by the greed of money.

Safety Frigidity Causes Further Incidents
   On May 22, 2014, one young man died because of the electric shock at the Noryangjin Station. The man climbed up to the top of the freight train. He stood on the top of the train and asked his friends to take pictures of him. It was just for amusing for that man; however, people heard a sudden explosion. As soon as his body touched the high pressure electric line, it led to an electric shock. This unbelievable and horrible accident killed the young man. When others hear this news, people might think that his careless action is the cause of the accident, and that nothing like that would happen to themselves if he was a little careful. Conversely, there was nobody who realize the danger of the situation and stop the man. This was because many people become unaware about the danger and its serious consequence on their lives in the end. “Safety frigidity” is another main reason for the tragedy of society. This is the term used to describe the condition of people who are insensible to the danger of the outside of the world. It is closely related to the man-made disaster because people and society do not understand that prevention of disasters is important because they assume that they are always in safe hands. Those people are ignorant about safety because they do not realize that anything can happen at any time and in any place. As many people do not care about safety, it will become hard to prevent further accidents even though people experienced the horror of disasters. According to the Public Safety Consciousness Index (PSCI) of 2007, the National Emergency Management Agency of Korea shows that 75.5% out of people are ignorant of safety. More than half of the citizens believe that they are safe. The same survey in 2012 also shows that 13.7% of people think that the society is safe, and that only 5.7% of people think the society is in jeopardy. Even though the rate was increased by 1% from 4.7% to 5.7%, it is still low. As a result, false senses about safety, careless actions of individuals, groups, companies, and the nation will give rise to an incident in the long run. Besides, forgetting about the need of prevention even after the accident could be a more serious problem in modern society. To sum up, we are in a vicious circle.

The Insufficiency of Preventions and Afterward Management Cause Disasters
   Man-made disasters always bring the loss of human life and the damage of property. Besides, other people have mixed feelings having been lost. Generally, disasters happen in a short period of time; however, failure of finding proper solutions is apt to bring about another incident. Insufficiency of prevention and afterward management is another cause of the disasters. This problem is closely related to the media of modern society. As technology developed rapidly and it is much easier for us to get information about anything. There are also some negative aspects of the remarkable technology development. The fact is that it makes us to believe everything broadcasted in the mass media. This is because of false reports and watered-downed reports. There are numerous kinds of media including broadcasting stations and newspapers. When there is an incident, reporters of those media are scrambling to report on the situation. Even though they always try to report accurate information, there are possibilities of reporting false information as the disaster lasts for a period of time. For example, the report turned out to be false when everyone was worrying about the passenger who were in the ferry Sewol. The report said that all students of Danwon high school were saved. People including the families of those students believe that news; however, it was not true. Even several broadcasting stations including Korean Broadcasting System (KBS), TV Chosun and Seoul Broadcasting System (SBS) reported wrong information about the ferry Sewol. For instance, Munhwa Broadcasting System (MBC) made the false report at first. On April 16, MBC used subtitles, “all students of Danwon high school were saved” on that day. After MBC broadcasted it, others from YTN to KBS reported the same news in only 25 minutes from the first wrong announcement from MBC. Reporting the wrong information aggravates the situation because it generates misjudgment and takes more time to find solutions for the problem. Watered-downed reporting is also the problem. Sometimes, mass media does not report the reality of the situations because broadcasting systems and newspapers compete each other and try to relax the people. As a result of this reporting, people become indifferent about the disaster as they do not know about the real situations. Consequently, it only covers up the accident and it becomes hard to take steps to prevent man-made disasters. If people are not aware of the real state of a situation, it can produce further tragedy putting people in jeopardy again.

What Actions Need to Be Taken to Prevent Man-made Disasters
   Individuals need to be saved as they are citizens of the country and the loss of people should not happen in the future. In order to prevent or stop further man-made disaster, there are several actions that people need to take. Realizing the importance of safety is the inevitable factor to reduce the man-made disasters. Careless thoughts and senses such as safety frigidity should be changed through the safety education. From children to senior citizens, people need to be trained about how to protect themselves when they face the problems. Schools and companies need to make an effort as well. People need to be familiar with emergency telephone numbers through education. Besides, safety instruction should include regular surveys in order to see whether people have changed as a result of safety education. Based on the results of survey, the government can carry on additional research and studies on safety.
   The government also need to take an action to protect people from disasters. It should tighten safety regulations; hence, companies should focus more on the safety of people than their profits. There should be no any exception because it is closely related to lives of people in this country. If groups or businesses violate the rules which leads to cause any accidents, there should be legal penalty on them. Furthermore, the government also need to enforce the regular check and maintenance on facilities that many people are using. Regret and sorrow are too late; therefore, the government and concerned authorities must do their best to stop incidents in advance. The regular maintenance will bring a huge change in a long term. The economic benefit is valuable; however, nothing can be compared to the value of life. For that reason, people must keep working to stop man-made disasters.

“Every Student was Rescued,”
The Time of The False Report of Ground Radio Wave, Comprehensive Channel and Report Channel

 Source : Korea Communications Standards Commission

Baek Jin | By CP Reporter, O Se-rin | CP Cub-Reporter