I if it was the same sort of thing that happened here. By the time they realized the severity, there was very little that they could do about it.

The best way for both ends would be to recognize the problem and fix it… like increasing safety awareness in Korea and decreasing frivolous lawsuits in Western worlds. Of course, way easier said than done.

Lack of safety-consciousness is always an issue here — but then people always ridicule what is seen as the over-protectiveness of Western governments and legal systems — say that we have too many lawsuits over safety and negligence issues, too many silly seeming warnings on labels — where is the happy medium…?

Does anybody think that the Korean government should forbid all people from being on the West Coast breakwaters at all times, because of the small chance of a rare monster wave coming in…? I wouldn’t advocate that.

But more swimming lessons, including in natural moving waters, for all Koreans would be a good thing, it seems.

Being from Nova Scotia, I was always taught to respect how dangerous the ocean can be. A sign on the Peggys Cove Lighthouse carries the following message in bold letters: “Warning / Injury and death have rewarded careless sight-seers here / The ocean and rocks are treacherous / Savour the sea from a distance.”

Despite this warning, many people have died at Peggys Cove. Tourists, mostly, who thought it was a calm enough day to get closer to the water and were carried out to sea by a rogue wave, never to be seen again…

The ocean is unpredictable and is no discriminator of age or race.

OP modified — I took the “?” off and changed the number, and deleted the “or another anti-Korean plot?” phrase. It was late at night and my capacities were diminished; I just saw it on the crawl on CNN and rushed to computer, couldn’t find anything concrete yet — then a bit later decided to post here. Did not intend to be snarky or disrespecting the victims — just didn’t know WHAT was going on, “giant killer wave at midnight” report seemed bizarre to me, confusing; was wondering if it was false or a rumor or a earthquake-tsunami or the result of something human-caused outside of Korea… Now all seems clear, and I join the grieving for just another safety-negligent natural-disaster tragedy.

Drowning is among the highest cause of deaths for Koreans under 20, most can’t swim. When a ‘large’ wave rolls in and too many people or fisherman get caught up they will drown. Certainly no natural disaster.

Another thing to note is, when something goes wrong in Korea usually death tolls are a lot higher than in western countries… maybe due to the higher population density or lack of awareness, safety standards etc.

Koreans are not used to seeing large waves, if this happened in Australia I doubt it would be described as ‘giant’, just a bigger wave in a set a rolled in.