It looks like someone may have had some mental issues:
The Russian Embassy in Seoul’s Jongno Ward (Yonhap)
An SUV rammed into a guard post in front of the Russian Embassy in central Seoul, seriously injuring a police officer on duty, officials said Monday.
The incident happened at 10:10 p.m. Sunday, and the officer was taken to a hospital with serious injuries to his neck and shoulders, officials said.
The driver was not under the influence of alcohol, officials said.
Police are looking into the exact cause of the crash.
Yonhap
Not all heroes wear shoes:
A 23-year-old South Korean man alerted his neighbors in an apartment fire in Seoul last week, helping all 95 residents to escape to safety, local media reported Monday.
On Thursday a fire broke out on the 14th floor of an apartment building in Banghwa-dong of Gangseo-gu, western Seoul, at 6:30 a.m., with no casualties except four minor cases of smoke inhalation. A report from local daily Dong-A Ilbo revealed that this was thanks to heroic efforts by a resident named Woo Il-yeong.
According to the report, the sixth-floor resident became aware of the fire while preparing for work, and went up to the 14th floor to find that smoke had filled the halls. After coming back downstairs to get a wet cloth, he went back up to find if anyone needed help.
Woo found an elderly person wondering around in the smoke on the 14th floor and led the person downstairs. He then ran up and down the stairs for 30 minutes to knocking on the doors and urge other residents to evacuate the building, before firefighters arrived on the scene.
After all 95 occupants had escaped to safety, he realized that he had lost his slippers. (…….)
Officials found that the fire started when a resident on the 14th floor was lighting a cigarette. It was also found that the building’s fire-resistant doors meant to prevent the spread of fire had been left open, allowing the blaze to spread across the entire floor within a short period.
Korea Herald
You can read more at the link.
The government is still indicting people over the Itaewon crowd crushing tragedy:
Prosecutors have indicted two police officers over the bungled response to the deadly 2022 crowd crush in the district of Itaewon, officials said Monday.
The indictment of the two officers who were overseeing patrol duties at a precinct station in Itaewon came a year and three months after the crowd crush on Oct. 29, 2022, which killed 159 people on a Halloween weekend in the district’s entertainment neighborhood.
The Seoul Western District Prosecutors Office has charged them with professional negligence resulting in death, accusing them of failing to properly respond to 11 emergency calls seeking police help in the last hours of the deadly accident.
One of them was also charged with entering a false record of visiting the accident site on that day into the police intranet, the officials said.
The two are the last government officials to be indicted in connection with the crowd crush, among the 23 that a special police investigation team referred to the prosecution in January 2023.
Last week, the prosecution indicted Kim Kwang-ho, the chief of the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency, on charges of professional negligence for the botched disaster response, making him the highest-ranking government official indicted in connection with the crowd crush.
Korea Herald
You can read more at the link.
It looks like there will be a lot of snow men being made in Seoul this New Year’s Day:
Seoul residents battled through the heaviest snowfall recorded for December since 1981, as a winter storm dumped more than 10 centimeters Saturday, with more snow expected in many parts of the country ahead of the new year.
A heavy snow advisory was in effect for the entire capital, except for southwestern Seoul, parts of Gyeonggi Province and most parts of the eastern province of Gangwon earlier in the day, according to the Korea Meteorological Administration.
As of 4 p.m., the advisory remained in effect for most parts of Gangwon, with up to 1 to 4 centimeters of snowfall per hour pounding the inland and mountainous areas of the province.
Yonhap
You can read more at the link.
The police have caught the people who actually committed the crime, but not the person who paid them to do it yet:
Police are hunting down the mastermind who commissioned a teen to spray paint 44-meter-long graffiti on the walls of a historic palace in central Seoul earlier this month, officials said Tuesday.
A 17-year-old, only identified by his surname Im, was arrested last week after spray painting the phrase “free movie” in Korean on both sides of the western gate to Gyeongbok Palace and palace walls near the National Palace Museum of Korea on Dec. 16.
Investigators have since found that Im was paid 100,000 won to commit the crime.
In an effort to track down the mastermind, police have conducted digital forensics on Im’s mobile phone, looked into the bank account used for the crime, and are scrutinizing the dialogue the two had on the messenger Telegram, according to national police chief Yoon Hee-keun.
But officials said they are having difficulty tracking down the mastermind due to strong security features of the messaging app and its server being based overseas.
Yonhap
You can read more at the link.
