How to Translate a Korean Emergency Alert
Got an alert in Korean and can't read it? Here is what to look at first, and what this tool does and doesn't do.
What a Korean emergency alert is
The government and local offices have carriers send these when a disaster may cause harm. They go out like a broadcast to every phone in the area.
There are three levels: 위급재난문자 (extreme), 긴급재난문자 (emergency) and 안전안내문자 (safety). Each has its own sound. The alert levels page quotes the rule.
Missing person alerts come to your phone too. The national police chief requests them, with the family's consent.
Three things to check first
Who sent it. The name in [ ] at the start is the agency. A city or district office means it is about that area.
Where. Check whether you are in the area named. This tool shades it on a map.
What to do. Words like 대피 (evacuate), 외출 자제 (stay indoors) or 우회 (detour) tell you. Look them up in the word list.
What this tool does
It reads the level only when one of the three title names (위급재난문자, 긴급재난문자, 안전안내문자) is in the pasted text. Otherwise it says it doesn't know.
It groups the topic by words. 호우 or 폭염 means weather. 실종 or 인상착의 means a missing person. It shows the words it found.
It finds place names from the official Korean place code list (province, district, neighborhood). If a name is shared, it narrows by other places in the text. If it still can't tell, it lists every match.
It translates with your browser's built-in translator when there is one (desktop Chrome 138 or later). That never goes through our server. If not, it gives you a Google Translate link. Tapping it sends the text to Google.
The word list quotes human-written dictionaries and public sources. Missing languages stay blank.
Reading a machine translation
Machine translation can get place names and numbers wrong. Check times, places and numbers against the Korean text.
Shelter and road names turn into other words when translated. Search the Korean name as written in a map app.
One word's meaning is not the whole sentence. Use the word list as a reading aid.
Other ways to get alerts in your language
The Emergency Ready App (안전디딤돌) from the Ministry of the Interior and Safety shows alerts in several languages. Install it to get new alerts there.
Extreme and emergency alerts sometimes carry key words, like the disaster type, in English. The full text is not translated.
This tool is for alerts you already got, or ones family forwarded to you in a chat.
FAQ
Will it notify me of new alerts? No. It can't receive alerts or send notifications.
Is the pasted text saved? No. Close the page and it's gone. It never goes to our server.
It found no place. Alerts that name only a road, station, building or river can't be matched. Search the Korean name in a map app.
Can it tell if an alert is real? No. If in doubt, contact the sending agency.