▲ Gas leaking from a factory in Gumi

On July 31, the movie "Exit" has been released, and now, it is gaining a lot of popularity.

▲ Poster of a movie ˝Exit˝, which shows gas leak accident very well

"Exit" records 5,251,831 cinema audiences in 11 days. Its main story is escaping from leaking gas. In the movie, gas just leaks out from a truck, and it goes all over the city. And, many people died because of this unknown gas. After this gas leaked, rescuers take Yong-nam's family to a safe place, but the two main characters, Yong-nam(Jo Jung-suk) and Ui-ju(Im Yoon-ah), cannot go. Then, the movie "Exit" is going to its highlight. Those two begin to run, climb and escape from gas which is coming up. Finally, they are rescued and become safe. But, this is not where the movie ends.

 
In 2012, there was a hydrofluoric acid gas leak in Gumi. Hydrofluoric acid is a toxic substance that smokes and has an irritating odor when it comes into contact with air. Also, it can severely corrode the skin and mucous membrane if a solution or vapor is directly in contact with the human body. It is a toxic substance that can cause death by inhaling a high concentration of gas or vapor due to strong toxicity, nerve tissue damage, and pulmonary edema, a disease that causes an excessive build-up of body fluid in the lungs. While watching the movie "Exit", many could recall this Gumi gas leak accident.

In addition, those two accidents from this movie and in Gumi occurred because of a person's carelessness. One engineer's mistake can make a big problem which takes so many people's life. There are much more man-made disasters, such as the Chernobyl explosion, and the recent case of ship Sewol. Also, most of those accidents had been even worse due to the government's late response, and trials were covered up so that civilians would not be mad. Gumi hydrofluoric acid gas leak is a similar case. The late response of Gumi city and complacent judgment have increased the damage to the region. Four hours and 48 minutes after the accident, an officer issued a resident evacuation order, and even without checking the exact gas concentration, he made a mistake in 12 hours, including closing companies within 50 meters of Hube Global and sending a text message that says "other companies are operating normally."

▲ Late, wrong treatment of government

The misjudgment and responsibility of the government-related agencies, as well as local governments, were at a serious level. The government and local governments were only trying to highlight that it was not a big problem by quickly getting residents back on their feet, and none of them knew about the nature and harmfulness of the chemical called hydrofluoric acid, which further aggravated the accident with non-professional treatment.

Lastly, all of us can be victims of this accident, and we should always be prepared. Also, people who are working at dangerous places must follow the rules and be careful to prevent another accident like in the movie "Exit".

Sep. 7th, 2019

by Kim Si-Hyoung