Firefighters look at the debris of a helicopter that was crashed while working to extinguish wildfires in Sinpyeong-myeon, Uiseong-gun, North Gyeongsang Province on March 26. Reporter Sung Dong-hoon

The wildfires that have been raging since March 21 have taken a heavy toll on the elderly, who are vulnerable to disasters. Most of the victims confirmed to date are elderly people. Some of them died during evacuation, while others were unable to get out of their homes. It is pointed out that a practical evacuation plan for the elderly should be prepared in the event of a major disaster.

According to police and local governments on March 26, most of the 19 people who died in the massive wildfires that raged in the northeastern part of North Gyeongsang Province were in their 60s, 70s, and 80s.

A man in his 80s was found dead in a house in Imha-myeon, Andong, around 11 a.m. that day. The house where the man was found had been burned down by the wildfires. On the 25th, a woman in her 80s was found dead in her yard in Pacheon-myeon, Cheongsong-gun, at around 6 p.m. The woman was presumed to have died after failing to escape the fire while evacuating to a nearby elementary school with her 88-year-old husband. On the night of the 25th, a woman in her mid-60s was found dead in a burnt-out car on a road in Cheongsong-eup, Cheongsong-gun.

On the same day, a man in his 70s was found dead in his home in Jinbo-myeon, Cheongsong-gun. He was found by the head of the village who visited the house to help with emergency evacuation. In Gigok-ri, Jinbo-myeon, a woman in her 80s with dementia went missing. It is believed that she was unable to escape the wildfires that spread to the village or died while trying to leave her home. In Maejeong-ri, Yeongdeok-eup, three patients in their 80s were killed when a vehicle carrying four nursing home patients caught fire and exploded. “There were many situations where evacuation was not possible because the fire spread quickly,” said an official from the Gyeongbuk National Police Agency.

Disaster safety experts said the current emergency text alerts sent during disasters and emergencies are not effective for the elderly, disabled, and others. In a paper published in Journal of Social Sciences last year, Jung Soon-dol, a professor of social welfare at Ewha Womans University, pointed out the problem of "disaster guidance in a general and universal form.” Jung said, “When you look at an emergency text alert, there is no information about support for the elderly and people with disabilities. They don't tell us who will help evacuate and how because they assume that we will evacuate on our own.” This means that generalized disaster guidance is of little help to the elderly, who may not be able to evacuate on their own.

Practical measures need to be taken for the elderly in rural areas, who are more vulnerable to disasters than their urban counterparts. Lee Jae-joon, an assistant professor of fire safety engineering at Jeonju University, said, "When a disaster strikes, the elderly living in cities do not suffer more death than those living in rural areas. The Ministry of the Interior and Safety has set up and operated voluntary disaster prevention groups bracing for disasters in rural areas, but the reality is that even those groups mostly consist of elderly people." He added, “Instead of sending emergency text alerts and saying, 'Evacuate on your own,' we need to build a system where someone actually helps them.”