Interior ministry opens task force to close gaps in heatwave victim support

The interior ministry said Tuesday it had launched a task force with other government agencies and outside experts to overhaul how heatwave deaths and injuries are counted and compensated, after a summer of record temperatures exposed inconsistencies in the figures each agency publishes.

Officials from the Ministry of the Interior and Safety and seven other agencies heard at the opening meeting in Seoul that South Korea's heatwave death toll for 2024 ranges from 25 to 108 depending on who is counting: the statistics agency's cause-of-death records put it at 108, the disease control agency's heat-illness surveillance system at 34, and the ministry's own disaster relief payments at 25. Participants agreed the gap confuses the public and said they would analyse the differences and examine ways to link the datasets.

That divergence sits alongside limits in the current support system: damage is recognised only if it occurs in areas under a heatwave advisory, and while lasting disabilities are assessed after treatment ends, claims must be filed within 10 days of the heatwave response period closing.

Officials also reviewed this summer's extremes. A daily high of 42.5 degrees Celsius in Yangsan, South Gyeongsang Province, broke the previous record, and the 42 days on which the daily high reached 39 degrees or above, along with 411 heatwave advisories, were the most since records began in 2010.

The task force will work in three areas — improving the accuracy of heatwave statistics, minimising gaps in support for people with lasting disabilities and strengthening guidance for victims — and aims to produce improvement measures before May 15, when next year's heatwave response period starts. The ministry also plans to specify actions required when a severe heatwave alert is issued and to align the criteria for weather advisories and heatwave crisis alerts, which currently run on separate tracks.

"Heatwaves are getting stronger every year, and they now have to be managed systematically as an everyday disaster," said Kim Yong-gyun, head of the ministry's natural disaster office. "We will work with relevant agencies and experts to build a statistical base that accurately captures heatwave damage and to minimise support blind spots for those with lasting disabilities."

The task force includes the health, agriculture, labour and disease control ministries as well as the national data agency, the Rural Development Administration and the National Disaster and Safety Research Institute, alongside academics from Ewha Womans University and researchers from the Korea Environment Institute and the Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs.