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By Kim Hyo-jin
The government will launch an English-language service website and app, Tuesday, for foreigners to report any daily dangers or safety concerns to the authorities, the Ministry of the Interior and Safety said Monday.
The subjects to report include risky situations involving schools, transportation, industrial and maritime facilities, criminal activities and natural calamities, as well as issues in anti-safety practices, laws and systems.
English speakers can access the website and app called "Safety e-Report" and leave a message about their concerns. The site has professional translators deliver the content to relevant government bodies in Korean and leave a response in English, the ministry said.
The interior ministry launched the Korean-language service for public safety in 2014. Since its launch, the number of reports increased sharply from about 75,000 in 2015, to 150,000 in 2016, and 210,000 in 2017 _ roughly a three-fold increase in two years.
Of all the reports, about 380,000 cases (87 percent) have been or are being dealt with by public organizations at local and central government levels, the ministry said. The average number of reports reached 631 per day this year, 51 percent up from the previous year.
The ministry expects that public safety will be further secured with the new English-language service.
"The rise of safety reports reflects the people's intention to build a safe society," said Song Jae-hwan, a ministry official in charge of the report system. "They are more willing to voluntarily improve living conditions. We will work on living up to their expectations."
The ministry told a case introduced in a story contest about the ongoing service early this year.
In the case, a high-school student witnessed a car accident in a four-lane street in front of her school. There was no traffic light and the lines designating the crosswalk were blurry. She reported the safety concerns about the street on the website saying the students are being exposed to potential accidents.
A police in the region operated a traffic light for two hours during the time students arrived and left the school considering the difficulty in installing a permanent traffic light there.
Of the reported cases, the most popular are the ones related to facilities like roads and buildings (43.4 percent), transportation (24.1 percent), daily life safety such as outdoor play equipments (11.2 percent), and school and fire protection (10.2 percent), the ministry said.
For further information, visit safetyreport.go.kr.
