Seoul Government Sends Out Erroneous Evacuation Alert After Failed North Korean Missile Launch
These systems that send out emergency notifications over text message may be more trouble than they are worth:
These images show mobile phone alerts sent out in the wake of North Korea’s launch of what appeared to be a space launch vehicle on May 31, 2023. (Yonhap)
The Seoul city government on Wednesday erroneously sent out an emergency alert advising citizens to prepare for evacuation after North Korea’s launch of what appeared to be a space launch vehicle.
The mobile phone alert was sent to all Seoul citizens at 6:41 a.m., shortly after the Joint Chiefs of Staff said North Korea fired what appeared to be a space launch vehicle. But the interior ministry retracted it at 7:03 a.m., saying the alert was sent by mistake.
“We inform that the alert warning issued by the Seoul Metropolitan City at 6:41 a.m. was an erroneous issuance,” the interior ministry said in a separate mobile phone alert.
A ministry official said that Seoul is not an area where an alert has been issued.
The Seoul city government said it was looking into why the alert was set off.
Yonhap
You can read more at the link, but at least people in Seoul are so desensitized to North Korean missile launches that they did not go into a mass panic like what happened in 2018 when a similar false text message missile alert was issued in Hawaii.
