Amid a series of fires at aging apartment buildings this year, including the Eunma Apartment fire, the Korea Consumer Agency (KCA) has found that some apartment complexes in the Seoul metropolitan area have rooftop plaza doors that remain locked, making evacuation difficult during emergencies and requiring improvement.
According to KCA findings released Wednesday, an inspection of rooftop plaza access at 20 apartment complexes built before February 2016 revealed that 20% (4 complexes) had doors locked without emergency automatic door-opening devices or emergency key boxes, making evacuation difficult.
Under revised Housing Construction Standards regulations, apartment buildings constructed after February 2016 are required to install emergency automatic door-opening devices on rooftop plazas that automatically unlock doors during fires and other emergencies. However, apartments built before the revision are not subject to this requirement and rely on self-managed evacuation measures such as keeping doors permanently unlocked.
The survey also found that while rooftop plazas are generally assumed to be on the top floor, only 60% (12 complexes) of those surveyed had rooftop plazas on the highest floor, while 40% (8 complexes) had them located one floor below. In cases where rooftop plazas were below the top floor, elevator machine rooms occupied the highest level.
Among apartments with rooftop plazas below the top floor, 62.5% (5 complexes) had emergency staircases leading to the top floor left open without barriers. This raises concerns that residents could mistakenly evacuate to the wrong floor during a sudden fire, assuming the rooftop plaza is on the highest level.
Additionally, among the 14 complexes where bulletin board inspections were possible, 92.9% (13 complexes) did not provide information about rooftop plaza access keys or key storage locations, indicating a need for improvement.
A separate KCA survey of 1,000 apartment residents found that 28.7% (287 respondents) were unaware whether their building had a rooftop plaza. Another 28.1% (281 respondents) said they knew a rooftop plaza existed but did not know the location of its entrance. With more than half of residents (56.8%, 568 respondents) potentially facing difficulties during evacuation, accurate information dissemination is deemed necessary.
Currently, metropolitan governments require building management to inform residents about emergency evacuation facilities through apartment management guidelines. However, this only applies at move-in, and no regulations mandate the continuous posting of rooftop plaza evacuation information on bulletin boards.
Based on these findings, KCA plans to recommend that metropolitan governments mandate the continuous provision of rooftop plaza evacuation information in apartment management guidelines. The agency also plans to request apartment-related associations to strengthen efforts to provide rooftop plaza evacuation information to residents and promote the installation of emergency automatic door-opening devices.