Emergency text alerts in English will be sent to inform foreign nationals who lack fluency in Korean on contingencies in the country.
The Ministry of the Interior and Safety and Korea Meteorological Administration on Feb. 28 announced the addition of such texts with a beep sound to provide such people with key information on disasters such as an earthquake.
English-language text alerts including "Earthquake," "Terror threat warning" and "Heavy rain" will be sent in parallel with the same warnings in Korean.
Since 2014 through the Emergency Ready App for foreign nationals not fluent in Korean, the ministry has provided such texts and related voice service in English and Chinese.
The ministry said this move will help the global community in Korea better understand contingency warnings.
Minister of the Interior and Safety Lee Sang-min said, "We will continue to improve the delivery of safety alerts for disasters with related government bodies so that foreign nationals who visit or live in the country can stay safe."
By Wu Jinhua
jane0614@korea.kr