Caption from source: A day before the Lunar New Year holidays, passengers yesterday line up to board buses at Seoul Express Bus Terminal in Banpo-dong. The Korea Expressway Corp. estimated 680,000 cars had left the capital as of 9 a.m. yesterday and 1.93 million cars would hit the road during the period. [NEWSIS]
Caption from source: Employees at the National Institute of Animal Science wash dishes because only two kitchen staffers are there to prepare meals for more than 100 workers who have to quarantined for fear of spreading FMD. Provided by the institute
Consider the sad example of Shin Sook, as reported in the JoongAng Ilbo:
Shin Sook, 38, who works in the computer room at the institute, walked from the building toward a big steel gate where a JoongAng Ilbo reporter was waiting. That’s how far Shin is permitted to have contact with the outside world. And that includes the Lunar New Year holidays, too. Shin, a mother of two young daughters, lives only three kilometers (1.8 miles) from the institute, but she has only been gazing in that direction for 28 days, unable to go home.“From the office, I can see the windows of my apartment. If the lights are on, I think to myself that my kids are home and when the lights are out, I know that they have gone to bed,” said Shin.
“Everyone treasures all the animals here. We can’t let anything happen to any of them,” Shin said. There are hundreds of priceless livestock at the NIAS, ranging from pigs that were genetically modified to help produce cures for hemophilia to cows used for cloning somatic cells. If the disease infects animals involved in projects that have been conducted for decades - with billions of won in investments - it could shake the foundation of the country’s biotechnology research to its core.
After the NIAS building became off-limits, the only things that have been allowed in are food for the workers and the livestock and oil to heat the facilities. The food is sterilized by infrared light before being carried into the building. And trucks carrying can only enter the grounds after being carefully sterilized. Workers’ family members can only meet them at the steel gate. So, two weeks ago, when Shin’s daughters visited, she couldn’t even hug them. Shin tried to explain the situation to her girls. “The pigs that mom’s company raises are very precious. Mommy can’t go outside or hug you because these pigs might get infected with a dangerous disease,” Shin told her older daughter, a fourth grader, while her younger daughter, 7, cried loudly. Shin said he told her husband not to bring the daughters to visit anymore because she couldn’t bear turning the daughters away as they cried.
Life inside the building is trying. Shin said half of the workers caught a cold after sleeping on the floor with no heating. The air is cold and dry, with the only heat coming from radiators. Employees wash their hair and face in a basin and take turns using the few showers at the institute. But still, Shin said, the conditions are bearable. The unbearable part is being unable to see her daughters. On Jan. 20, Shin spent the whole day sitting absentmindedly at her desk. It was her younger daughter’s elementary school orientation day.
Let's hope we can see an end to the spread of the FMD soon so that people like Shin can be reunited with their families.
sources:
http://joongangdaily.joins.com/article/view.asp?aid=2931790
http://joongangdaily.joins.com/article/view.asp?aid=2931798
