What are the loud emergency text alerts on Korean phones, and how can I understand them?
I keep getting loud Korean text alerts on my phone that I cannot read. What are these emergency messages, and how do I understand them?
1 Answer
Those loud alerts are Korea's emergency alert texts (재난문자), which come in three tiers — 위급재난문자 (extreme), 긴급재난문자 (emergency) and 안전안내문자 (safety notice) — sent by the Ministry of the Interior and Safety to phones in a specific region. They cover everything from severe weather warnings, dust storms, and heatwaves to missing children alerts, COVID-era infection updates, and earthquake or tsunami warnings. The sound is intentionally jarring so you don't miss them.
To understand them, install the Emergency Ready App (안전디딤돌) from the official Ministry, which translates incoming alerts into English, Chinese, Japanese, and a few other languages in real time. The Korean Red Cross also has the Safe Korea app with similar translation. As a quick fix, Papago and Google Translate's camera mode work well on the alert screen. Most alerts are local advisories you can usually ignore (heavy rain forecast, for example), but earthquake (지진) and tsunami (지진해일) alerts mean act immediately. You can adjust which alert types you receive in your phone's Settings → Notifications → Emergency Alerts, but turning off the Presidential and Civil Defense categories is not recommended. The 1345 immigration helpline and the Seoul Global Center (02-2075-4180) can also explain alerts in English over the phone.