The 112 emergency number, which started in 1957, has settled as the ‘emergency bell’ of Korea, but police say that a lot of manpower is wasted due to fake and prank calls. Even if it is not the duty of the police, it is a rule that they have respond to a caller if he/she insists strongly. (Image : Yonhap)
SEOUL, Nov.2 (Korea Bizwire) – Some of the ridiculous 112 emergency calls that were reported to the police on the day before ’112 day’ on November 2 have been revealed to the public.
“There’s a bug in the doorway and I can’t catch it.”
“One of the soy milk packets I bought from the home shopping network turned out to be bad.”
“It’s says on my phone to restart it after inserting the USIM card. What does that mean? Don’t the police know?”
“The dog in the street has a really short leash on. Can you come and save it?”
Some even asked for the phone numbers of animal hospitals in the middle of the night, or were frustrated that fumes were coming up from a barbeque restaurant downstairs, and asked the police to come and ‘take care’ of those downstairs. Some were even angry that they hadn’t been connected to consumer service when a vending machine was out of order.
The 112 emergency number, which started in 1957, has settled as the ‘emergency bell’ of Korea, but police say that a lot of manpower is wasted due to fake and prank calls. Even if it is not the duty of the police, it is a rule that they have respond to a caller if he/she insists strongly.
Among the 18,778,105 112 calls, only 2,391,396 cases required an urgent response (12.7 percent), while 7,996,036 cases were classified as not urgent (42.6 percent), and the other 8,390,673 cases (44.7 percent) were civil complaints that did not require the involvement of the police.
Numerous instances where callers hang up or swear are also a never ending hardship. A total of 173 people called 112 over a hundred times during the month of June, and among them, five called over a thousand times.
Law enforcement agencies are planning to hold a campaign to raise public awareness about the appropriate use of the 112 hotline, emphasizing that one should only call the number in the case of real emergencies.
In addition, officials added that those with civil complaints that have nothing to do with the police should call 110 or 120, and those with civil complaints that are related to the police should call 182.
By Lina Jang (linajang@koreabizwire.com)
