Search underway as Seoul’s mayor, 64, goes missing after ‘leaving a message like a will and turning his phone off’
- Officers are looking for Park Won-soon at a site where his phone was detected
- The 64-year-old did not turn up to work today, the mayor’s office has revealed
- His daughter called police to say her father’s whereabouts were unknown
A huge search operation is underway for the mayor of Seoul who has disappeared after ‘leaving a message like a will and turning his phone off’.
Emergency services are frantically searching for Park Won-soon, the 64-year-old mayor of the South Korean capital.
Detectives say Won-soon’s mobile phone signal was last detected on a small hill in Seungbuk-dong, a district in northern Seoul.
His concerned daughter reported him missing to police earlier today and said her father’s whereabouts were unknown.
She filed a police report that her father ‘had left home four to five hours ago after leaving words like a will, with his phone currently off’, The Korea Herald reported.
Officers are looking for Seoul mayor Park Won-soon, pictured above, who has turned his phone off and left a message with ‘words like a will’
Police officers stand guard in front of Park Won-Soon’s property
Rescuers arrive to help join in the emergency services hunt for missing mayor Park Won-Soon
Kim Ji-hyeong, an official from the Seoul Metropolitan Government, confirmed that Won-soon did not show up for work on Thursday because of unspecified reasons.
He also cancelled all his schedules, including a meeting with a presidential official at his Seoul City Hall office.
Police said 150 officers, drones and a police dog have been scrambled to join in the hunt.
Search operations are underway as officers race to find missing mayor Park Won-Soon
Kim Ji-hyeong, an official from the Seoul Metropolitan Government, confirmed that Won-soon did not show up for work on Thursday because of unspecified reasons. Fire, ambulance and police vehicles were stationed outside of a park in Seoul
Officers arrive to search for Park Won-soon, whose concerned daughter reported him missing to police earlier today and said her father’s whereabouts were unknown
Officers wearing protective face masks were today seen stationed outside his property as investigators hunted through forests.
A long-time civic activist and human rights lawyer, Won-soon was elected as the independent Seoul mayor in October 2011 with the support of the Democratic Party and Democratic Labor Party.
He was voted into his third and final term in June last year.
A long-time civic activist and human rights lawyer, Won-soon was elected Seoul mayor in 2011 and voted into his third and final term in June last year
An aerial view of Seongbuk-dong, a northern district in Seoul. Officers say Won-soon’s mobile phone signal was last detected on a small hill
A member of President Moon Jae-in’s liberal Democratic Party, he had been considered a potential presidential candidate for the liberals in the 2022 elections.
He has mostly maintained his activist colours as mayor, criticising what he described as the country’s growing social and economic inequalities and the traditionally corrupt ties between large businesses and politicians.
During the earlier part of his terms, Park established himself as a fierce opponent of former conservative President Park Geun-hye.
He openly supported the millions of people who flooded the city streets in late 2016 and 2017, calling for her ouster over a corruption scandal.
Seoul, a city with 10 million people, has been a new epicentre of the coronavirus outbreak in South Korea since easing its rigid social distancing rules in early May.
Authorities are struggling to trace contacts amid surges in cases linked to nightclubs, church services, a huge e-commerce warehouse and door-to-door sellers.