A constitutional sentence, and a concept that widened

The notes open with a sentence they quote from Article 34 of the Constitution: the state must strive to prevent disasters and to protect the people from their dangers. That, they say, makes clear a duty to protect life and safety. Once, the word disaster pointed mainly at earthquakes, typhoons, floods, and the damage they left. Today, they write, it also takes in human and social disasters. Climate change — global warming, the shrinking of Arctic sea ice — has sharpened public alarm, while natural events grow more frequent year by year and the scale of harm becomes hard to predict. At the same time, fires, collapses, explosions, traffic accidents and pollution have become more common as science, industry and cities have grown. Those observations are left as the notes write them, not recast as a later official total.

Korea, in this account, often leaves unclear how far the central government and the local governments each bear responsibility, and local governments depend heavily on the center. When a disaster comes, a weak first response then enlarges the damage. The center has large funds and clearly plays an important part, but given the country’s size and its dense population it cannot, they say, intervene in every event without also lowering the efficiency of the response.

From civil defence to a single framework act

The 1970s, they write, brought the Civil Defence Basic Act, a law tied to national disasters. In the 1980s and 1990s, separate statutes were tidied up for agricultural and fishery disasters and for firefighting, railways, roads and construction. In the late 1990s there were attempts to pull the laws together. In the early 2000s a Framework Act on the Management of Disasters and Safety brought natural and human disasters under one roof, and a four-stage system — prevention, preparedness, response, recovery — took hold. A later amendment, they add, simplified the types of disaster into natural and social, and opened a separate chapter on the promotion of a safety culture. The roots of the statutes, they also note, go back to a law on measures against wind and flood damage. Those periods stay in the window the notes give.

The municipality at the front, and a plea for support

The front-line body that actually runs disaster management and protects residents’ lives, they argue, is the local government, because it stands closest to the event. A disaster will deliver a huge economic shock to that locality, and municipal finances come under strain from rising statutory debt and insurance claims. The report begins from the conviction that the organizations and staff at that front need thorough support, and it ends by proposing a dedicated body and a more integrated way of running disaster work with local administration. The same Korean report, at fuller length, is on CampusDown.

Sources

1. The notes, a student report on the history of Korean disaster administration, with the early-2000s framework act and the four stages left as the notes record them.

Last updated: 15 November 2026