Government officials and lawmakers are engaged in heated debate over whether the unexpected massive discharge of water from a North Korean dam on the Imjin River on Sunday morning was intentional or not. It is important to assess North Korea's intentions accurately, but regardless of the motive for opening the sluice gates of the dam in the middle of the night, the fact remains that a gaping hole has been exposed in the government's response to a threat from the North.

North Korea's unpredictability was clearly demonstrated when soldiers killed a South Korean tourist by shooting her in the back. A government dealing with such an unpredictable regime must be prepared for any scenario, even if tensions appear to have eased temporarily.

Already on Aug. 27, North Korea released 7,400 tons of water a second down the Imjin River for two hours. That caused a crane to be submerged at the construction site of the Gunnam Dam and severed a temporary bridge. The Yeoncheon local government claims it sounded alarms warning people to evacuate. Fortunately, no lives were lost in that discharge because it was a weeknight and the banks of the Imjin River were empty. Fears of an attack using water were raised back in 2002, when the North began constructing the Hwang River Dam. That is why South Korea is in the process of building the Gunnam Dam, which is to serve as a buffer.

The sudden discharge of water from the Hwang River Dam on Sunday morning took away six lives. The danger posed by this threat was raised a long time ago, and it had been just 11 days since the last massive release. But Yeoncheon officials on night duty did not even bother to keep an eye on the water gauges and monitors in their control room. The military unit that first noticed the water level rising did not sound the alarm or inform Yeoncheon authorities, Korea Water Resources Corporation or even neighboring military bases.

Two days before the tragedy, KWRC technicians had replaced a supplementary early-warning and detection device on the Pilseung Bridge, but they forgot to switch it on. The main transmission device that triggers an automatic alarm along the banks of the Imjin River was out of order. It was a weekend, so KWRC employees were working from home. The main purpose of allowing staff to work from home on weekends is to boost efficiency. It is not an excuse for them to rest. If the workers had bothered to turn on their computers to check the gauges at the Han River Flood Control Office or at the construction site of the Gunnam Dam, six lives could have been saved. Only two people were at their assigned posts that morning, the two soldiers on sentry duty on Pilseung Bridge.

When Yeoncheon opened the control room in 2001, there were two monitoring centers to gauge the water level of the Imjin River. In 2002, it installed four cameras, 13 automatic alarms and two electronic billboards to alert people in emergencies, and in 2004 equipment allowing water levels to be shown on a large LED screen. In 2005, it set up a disaster department. From the outside, Yeoncheon appeared to be taking every measure to deal with the dam threat, but when an actual emergency happened, none of them worked.

It is the duty of the government to protect the lives and property of citizens by blocking any unexpected and provocative move by North Korea. The reason we buy submarines and helicopters that cost hundreds of billions of won and even Aegis destroyers that cost more than W1 trillion (US$1=W1,225) is because we cannot trust North Korea. But expensive military hardware and the most high-tech equipment are useless if they fail to work or if the people operating them become neglignet. Looking at the Imjin River tragedy should make us all very nervous about our monitoring, alarm and emergency response systems as North Korea's threat looms over us.