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Busan Metropolitan City Conducts Practical Evacuation Elevator Drill for High-Rise Buildings

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Busan Metropolitan City, led by Mayor Park Heong-joon, announced that it will conduct the 2026 Joint Evacuation Elevator Drill for High-Rise Buildings today (June 23) at 2:00 p.m. at BIFC2, a newly constructed supertall office building located in the Munhyeon Financial Complex in Nam-gu District. The exercise will be carried out in cooperation with the Korea Elevator Safety Agency, the jurisdictional fire station, the building management entity, and building occupants.

The drill has been designed to minimize casualties in the event of disasters occurring in the rapidly increasing number of supertall buildings and to strengthen practical, field-oriented emergency response capabilities by moving beyond a formalistic safety management system centered on mandatory legal training.

In particular, this year’s exercise advances beyond last year’s residential officetel model conducted at IFC Busan by applying customized control and rescue scenarios that reflect the characteristics of large supertall office facilities with dense concentrations of occupants and visitors.

The exercise will be attended by a large number of working-level personnel, including representatives of related organizations and building occupants. The program will consist of theoretical instruction on the operation and key functions of evacuation elevators, a practical evacuation drill based on a simulated high-floor fire scenario, and a comprehensive feedback session to identify areas for improvement.

According to statistics from the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, the number of high-rise buildings with 31 floors or more in the Busan area has been increasing by approximately 10 percent annually and now exceeds 700 buildings. As a result, securing practical operational capabilities for evacuation elevators has emerged as an urgent priority.

Accordingly, Busan Metropolitan City is focusing on effectively supervising the legal requirement for evacuation elevator operation drills at least once per year, as stipulated in Article 5 of the Operational Regulations on Safe Elevator Operation and Management, while also establishing standardized response manuals.

This year’s drill will specifically reflect the technical characteristic that all hall call buttons become disabled when an elevator is switched to evacuation operation mode. Participants will therefore conduct practical exercises in which a controller and a guide work as a two-person team to prevent passenger entrapment incidents and safely transport evacuees to the ground floor.

In addition, a citizen observer group composed of members of local senior clubs will participate in the exercise, providing an opportunity to promote a culture of safety throughout the community.

Bae Seong-taek, Director General of the Housing and Architecture Bureau of Busan Metropolitan City, stated, “Disasters in high-rise buildings can quickly result in large-scale loss of life if a sophisticated control system is not activated at an early stage. Building on the achievements of last year’s pilot operation, we have upgraded the training model this year to focus on large office facilities.”

He added, “In the second half of the year, we will gradually expand the training system to districts and counties including Yeonje-gu and Haeundae-gu, and by 2027 we aim to fully establish a practical safety standard model throughout all areas under the city’s jurisdiction.”