Seoul, South Korea – The wail of an air raid siren pierced the calm of a warm fall afternoon Monday as people were herded into subway tunnels in an exercise that has taken on new urgency since North Korea’s nuclear test.
The drill was a reminder to South Koreans that they remain technically in a state of war since the 1950-53 Korean conflict ended in a cease-fire.
When the clock on Seoul’s City Hall struck 2 p.m., the siren went off and workers began streaming from offices into the nearby subway entrance.
“Go down the steps! Go into the subway!” Kim Ki-Nam, the drill officer, shouted into a megaphone.
The pace was perhaps more leisurely than panicked, but Kim said people seemed to take the drill more seriously than before the North’s nuclear test last week.
“People were much more cooperative, and I think it’s because of the North Korean nuclear issue,” he said.
Lee Deuk-Kyu, 36, a government worker idling in the subway during the exercise, said he feared the United States might provoke communist North Korea.
“There is a possibility of war. America might attack; North Korea might attack,” he said.
Park Sam-Sun, however, said she was worried about the nonchalant attitude of some in the South, including the government, toward the North Korean nuclear program.
“I am afraid that the Korean War could happen again just like it did before, out of nowhere,” said the 63-year-old woman. “I worry about it every day.”
Such civil defense drills are a feature of life in North Korea, sometimes held once or twice a month – or even daily if the regime feels under particular pressure, said Kang Chol-Hwan, a North Korean defector living in Seoul.
According to the South’s National Intelligence Service, North Koreans carry rice and medicine to shelters, where they receive instruction on political ideology and wartime action.
Other drills in the North include a practice blackout to guard against possible air attacks – although the North is practically blacked out on a normal day because of electricity shortages.
