An emergency evacuation alert sent in e𒉰rror across♛ South Korea’s Seoul over
North Korean rocket launch triggered widespread pani꧒c on W🦹ednesday.
According to the report in NDTV, it lead to crashing of internet services and raising✅ fears the government in the country could not be trusted to handle a real crisis.
It mentioned the alert, sent at 6:41 am local time to all mobile phones in Seoul, said: ";Citizens, please prepare to evacuate and allow children and the elderly to evacua🌺te first."
“The message did not specify why res💙idents should evacuate or explain where they should go -- Seoul has long had a network of underground bomb shelters, but they have not bᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚeen used in emergencies in living memory,” it added.
The report quoting Naver, South Korea's largest internet portal, said its network went dow♔n for around five minutes due to the excess traffic sparked by the alert.
It said after around 20 minuꦬtes of ♔confusion, the government retracted the alert.
"𝔍We inform you that the alarm sent𒈔 at 0641 was incorrectly issued," it said.
“The retraction promptꦆed anger and frustration, including calls on social media for Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon to resign,” it stated.
The aler🅠t was triggered after North Korea launched a rocket carr💜ying a military spy satellite, which crashed into the sea, it said.
It added but it flew over waters west of the pe🎀ninsula and not the Seoul metro area, the South Ko💃rean military later confirmed.
