Core System and Disaster Management :Failure of the Sewol Ferry Disaster Response System

Core System and Disaster Management :Failure of the Sewol Ferry Disaster Response System

The purpose of this study is to seek for the core system in managing disasters: Failure of the Sewol disaster response system to manage crisis effectively and efficiently. This paper suggests five elements which form a core system as follows; value, institution, leadership, devotion, and expertise. First, it is the value that determine the direction of system operation in some situations like disaster, public issue, and events, etc. The fundamental problems of crisis and emergency management came from a lack of value and philosophy for disaster management in the case of Sewol ferry disaster. Second, for realizing the desirable value, a system has to make or build up an institution which can be accepted socially and legally by society members. In the case of disaster response in Korea, there are lots of ad hoc institutions of disaster response in the time of accident. Third, leadership is essential to the success of any system which should accomplish a common task. Government leaders dealing with catastrophic disaster, however, failed to work out a new framework to tackle catastrophic disasters. Fourth, devotion is a positively necessary element for completing the system's work. But disaster response actors did not get the devotion to their job and not receive training in maritime rescue operations. Finally, as jobs becomes more specialized, system become increasingly dependent on expertise to achieve goals. In the case of disaster management system, there was no expertise in the related and responsible government organizations.