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At noon on the 4th, in Guryong Village in Seoul's Gangnam district, known as the "last shantytown in the city center," about a dozen residents gathered in a tent marked "Fire Shelter" to endure the heat with the tepid air blown by five electric fans as daytime temperatures soared to 37 degrees Celsius. A portable cooling unit installed a few days earlier failed to blow cold air properly. Gangnam district said it provided three portable air conditioners, but residents felt little effect.
The neighborhood community center right next door was designated an official heat shelter, but the cramped space was already occupied by about a dozen residents, effectively at capacity. Many nearby shelters were senior centers operated on a membership basis, making them difficult for ordinary residents to use. In the end, the only place residents could freely use was the Gaepo 1-dong community service center, about 1 kilometer away in a straight line. One resident of Guryong Village in his 70s said, "You have to walk 20 minutes over a hill, which is burdensome for the elderly on such a hot day."
Critics point out that heat shelters, established to protect groups vulnerable to heat waves, are concentrated in senior centers and village halls and fail to adequately meet actual demand. They argue that beyond the number of facilities, reflecting users' living areas, mobility, age, and housing type is necessary to prevent vulnerable residents from being left outside the safety net.
According to an analysis by Seoul Economic Daily on the 5th of the Ministry of the Interior and Safety's open API on heat shelter status through the Disaster Safety Data Sharing Platform, of the 60,841 shelters nationwide, 50,195 — or 82.5% — were senior or social welfare facilities. Public facilities and government offices accounted for just 6,928, or 11.4%. Most of the roughly 30,000 heat shelters temporarily designated this summer were also senior centers.
The situation was similar at Gaemi Village in Hongje-dong, Seodaemun district, Seoul. Six residents had come to a heat shelter at the top of the village to cool off, but this too was a senior center run on a membership basis. Located at the very top of the village, its accessibility was poor. Non-members under 65 or residents living lower in the village had to travel to the more distant Hongje 2-dong and 3-dong community service centers.
Senior centers often require a minimum age or membership to use. Even if counted as shelters in government statistics, they may not serve as genuine public shelters for non-elderly vulnerable groups and non-member residents. The Board of Audit and Inspection also pointed out in July last year that designating and operating heat shelters centered on membership-based senior centers could reduce the effectiveness of preventing heat wave damage, but the operating structure has not changed significantly this year either.
The accessibility of public heat shelters other than senior centers is also a problem. Researchers at the National Disaster Management Research Institute divided all of Seoul into a grid of 100-meter by 100-meter cells and analyzed heat wave risk, the distribution of vulnerable groups, and shelter accessibility. Applying the average adult walking speed to factors such as building density, green space distribution, and the number of heat wave and tropical night days, they examined whether public shelters could be reached within 5, 10, or 15 minutes. Membership-based senior centers were excluded from the accessibility analysis.
As a result, about 28% of areas in Seoul where heat-vulnerable groups reside were found to be unable to reach a public heat shelter within a 5-minute walk. Gangnam, Eunpyeong, Gangseo, and Seocho districts were classified as areas with relatively many access blind spots. This means that even if there are many shelters, response to heat waves is limited if people cannot actually reach them.
Lee Sang-eun, a professor of social welfare at Soongsil University, said, "Even if the number of shelters appears sufficient, it is meaningless if residents cannot actually use them," adding, "The more concentrated the vulnerable groups, the more they should be operated so that people can use them within their living areas."
Meanwhile, after conducting three on-site inspections from the 30th of last month to the 4th of this month, Gangnam district installed three additional portable air conditioners at two shared residential spaces and provided 3,000 bottles of drinking water. It is operating a temporary clinic staffed by doctors and nurses until the 14th and has also deployed an ambulance.
Gangnam District Mayor Kim Hyun-ki said, "Having visited Guryong Village myself and heard residents' voices, we implemented the necessary support without delay," adding, "We will carefully monitor the site until the heat wave ends and do our utmost to help residents spend the summer safely and healthily."
