South Korea is a country that advances by leaps and bounds in technological question. It is home to some of the most important companies in the world -samsung or Hyundai- and is fighting to become one of the referents in the chips segment. Seoul, its capital, is a look at what could be the future of hypertecnological cities, but after that image of modernity, an increasingly silent pandemic is hidden: that of suicide.
And no place better reflects this crisis than the Mapo bridge in Seoul, nicknamed ‘The Suicides Bridge’.
Alarming figures. Suicide is a taboo issue in many societies that sometimes have not paid attention to avoid the tragic outcome. It is not something that caught us so far. In 2020, in Spain a person committed suicide every two and a half hours. Each country tries to deal with this situation, but the case of South Korea is bleak.
Do not go to the archives to see the evolution of suicides in the Asian country:
- In 2021, 13,352 people committed suicide.
- In 2022, approximately 13,000 were given.
- In 2023, the figure rose to 13,770.
- In the first six months of 2024, 6,375 people committed suicide, assuming an increase of more than 10% compared to the same period of the previous year. The total was 14,439 dead.
Cocktail. They are figures distant to the maximum of 2013, when 14,427 occurred, but in 2020, the country had the highest rate among OECD countries with 24.1 suicides per 100,000 inhabitants. It is more than double the average.
The reason is that there is a social and cultural cocktail that pushes thousands of people to end their lives. There is a very high social pressure and competitiveness for being the best in studies and work life. If you do not achieve it, economic problems occur, but although that ‘success’ is achieved, there is a high level of stress and low social awareness about mental illnesses. Also idealized and impossible beauty canons for much of the population.
And it is not something that cares only to suicide, since the little birth that is leading to the country to an unsustainable situation is also the gross of those social pressures.
THE MAPO BRIDGE
Effect called. The most affected group is the one between ages of 10 to 39 and is the main cause of death among South Koreans between 10 and 39 years. Between 40 and 56% of deaths in these age groups is due to suicide. These brutal pressures even affect the country’s celebrities, so much that studies have already been carried out that relate suicides with the moment in which one of these celebrities ends with their life.
As if there were an effect called or idealization of the act, three of the eleven cases of suicides between celebrities resulted in an increase in the rate among the population, leading people to use the same methods as said celebrity. In recent years, there have been numerous cases among young Astros of K-Pop, cinema and television, very exposed to criticism in a country where there is a very strict moral standard that these celebrities must meet.
The notice says: “Line Life.
Methods. They have changed in recent years. At the beginning of the century, most used pesticides to get intoxicated. This poisoning remains one of the most used methods, but now it is by means of yoontan: coal cylinders that produce poisoning by carbon monoxide aspiration.
The hanging has also become common (with examples such as ‘sulli’ that expose that effect called), but throwing themselves to train tracks or from bridges is also a method.
THE MAPO BRIDGE. And all this leads us to the Seoul bridge. We have talked about many bridges in WorldOfSoftware and Mapo’s is, structurally, a normal, almost ordinary bridge. It does not stand out for design, certainly, but it has become the sad secondary protagonist of dozens of suicides in recent decades.
It is not the only one from which the South Koreans throw themselves to end their lives, but one of the most used due to the current of the river has very difficult the rescue work very difficult.
So much is the impact of the bridge on the statistics of the country that began to call colloquially as ‘The Suicides Bridge’. From the city, this was wanted to combat the structure as ‘bridge of life’ as part of a Samsung Life Insurance initiative. But it was not a simple name change.
Measures. The company placed photos of happy families, among other measures to deter suicides, such as movement sensors that activated light posters with mood phrases, but they were considered a failure in 2015 and it was then that the focus was changed to prevent suicide instead of deter.
Thus, a series of active and passive measures were installed to stop the high rate of vacuum throwing, such as phones from which to request help every few meters (it has a length of about 1,300 meters), mirrors so that those who plan to jump see their face, cameras, high barriers and rollers that make it difficult to get to the edge.
The fences are high and in the last upper section there is a roller
We can see the roller, as well as the mirrors
Social strategies. It is, in short, a series of actions to make jumping more difficult, but beyond this (which is still a patch), in recent years the country has taken the mental health of citizens more seriously.
For example, strategies to prevent suicide thanks to greater media coverage than public awareness, as well as training campaigns and notions of suicide prevention for teachers and social workers. Also reviews focused on adolescents and another series of infrastructure measures to strengthen security on bridges and train tracks.
Despite the efforts to reduce the incidence of suicide, the Mapo bridge remains a symbol of this crisis, with 846 people jumping from the bridge between 2014 and 2018, died 24 of them. Meanwhile, some visitors try to counteract the darkness with messages of hope, the true solution is still in deeper changes in South Korean society.
Photographs placed in 2012-2013
Not only in South Korea. Now, unfortunately, many other bridges are protagonists when someone tries to end their lives. An example of a famous bridge is the Golden Gate of San Francisco. At one point, it was the bridge that registered the most suicides. Cameras, free relief and networks were installed so that, who is launched in a vacuum, falls into them.
Golden Gate networks
And the one who advanced it was the Nanjing Yangtze bridge in China. In it, the prevention measures are scarce, but there are volunteers who have been assisting people who roam the bridge for decades. In the end, it is a world tragedy, but in the case of the Seoul bridge, the vast implementation of prevention measures in the structure evidence that is very worrying for the country.
Imágenes | Yen L., Patrick Vierthaler, Michael Gallagher, Seoul Stroll, Michael Sean Gallagher (2)
