Korea moved to a Level 2 heat emergency, and the outdoor work stoppage above 38 degrees is a strong recommendation rather than an order

Thirty eight degrees.

Above that, measured as a perceived temperature rather than as a thermometer reading, Korea's labour ministry now wants outdoor work to stop, with an exception only for emergency tasks. The instruction went out on Sunday, hours after the government raised its Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters to Level 2 at 13:00. Minister Kim Young-hoon set out four directions in a document distributed the same afternoon. The strongest of them is a recommendation.

That word is the story. Korea has a staged framework, and the ministry published it again on Sunday in three rows. At a perceived 33 degrees, under a heat advisory, working hours are to be adjusted or outdoor work shortened. At 35, under a heat warning, outdoor work stops between 2 p.m. and 5 p.m. At 38, under the heat major alert now in force across much of the south, outdoor work stops except for emergency measures. What the ministry directs its own regional offices to do is guide and inspect. What it directs them to tell employers is a strong recommendation.

Logistics centres and construction sites were named as the workplaces to inspect first.

The second instruction, which is not about the sun

Heat does something to enclosed spaces that has nothing to do with anyone standing in it. As temperatures rise, microbial growth and decay inside wastewater treatment plants, sewer pipes, septic tanks and storage vessels drive up concentrations of carbon dioxide and hydrogen sulphide, and the ministry describes the resulting asphyxiation risk as very high. It has recommended that local governments across the country suspend confined space work other than emergency measures, and told its regional offices to step up inspection.

The rules underneath that recommendation changed on 1 December 2025. Oxygen and harmful gas measuring equipment must be issued, results must be recorded and kept for three years, 119 is to be called first when an accident happens, and confined space risk must be taught rather than assumed.

The money, and the drought underneath it

The interior ministry runs the headquarters, and its own document of the same day puts numbers on the response. Yun Ho-jung, the minister, is sending 5.75bn won of the special disaster and safety subsidy to drought areas in South and North Gyeongsang, where rainfall has been short and reservoir levels have fallen. A further 170m won of disaster relief funding goes to heat measures, split as 80m won to South Jeolla and Gwangju, 50m won to South Gyeongsang, and 20m won each to Busan and Ulsan. It pays for air conditioning at cooling shelters and for supplies: fans, cool mats, bottled water, drinks, heat kits.

Director-general level officials have been posted to the capital region and to the south to manage the response on the ground, with situation managers sent nationwide. The minister said heat and drought threaten the livelihoods of farmers and the daily lives of vulnerable people, and he named outdoor workers among them.

The temperature that sits behind all of this came from the Korea Meteorological Administration, which recorded 42.5 degrees at Yangsan in South Gyeongsang on 2 August, the highest reading in the country's instrumental record.

One earlier document that belongs here

Three days before any of this, the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries raised its high sea temperature disaster alert to Serious I, from 18:00 on 30 July. The National Institute of Fisheries Science had issued high temperature warnings for six sea areas and advisories for 18 more that afternoon. A warning means water has reached 28 degrees and has held there for three days or is expected to. The standing task team, previously run by a director, became a headquarters led by the minister.

This publication did not carry that at the time, and it runs now because it is still live and because it is the same event. Fish farms have been told to bring harvests forward, release stock early, thin their densities and cut or stop feeding. That is the part of a heat wave that reaches a price rather than a hospital.