※ This video was produced in 2014 and may differ from the current situation.

■ For the first time in Korea, the scale of lonely deaths in Korea is revealed.

There were no accurate statistics on the average annual number of lonely deaths. Previously, media reports only cited the number of unclaimed deaths for which local governments held funerals, or the number of elderly people living alone, as an estimated potential lonely death population. The Panorama production team conducted a comprehensive survey of lonely deaths from January to December 2013, obtaining 31,891 police death records and 966 unclaimed death records from local governments nationwide. This provided the first glimpse into the scale of lonely deaths nationwide, a figure previously only estimated.
The results were shocking. Last year, there were 1,717 lonely deaths, with the bodies discovered long after they had decomposed to the point of complete decomposition. Including those found late after death while living alone, the annual total reached 11,002. An average of 4.7 people die alone every day, with no one around them. This means that one lonely death occurs around us every five hours.
The most surprising finding, contrary to expectations, was that lonely deaths occurred most frequently among people in their 50s. The combined number of lonely deaths among those in their 40s and 50s was higher than that of those in their 60s and older. This finding overturned the perception that lonely deaths were a problem only for the elderly who lived alone. So, what is happening to men in their 50s, living in cities? We looked back on the life of one man who died alone.

■ Lonely Deaths, Not Someone Else's Problem! - The Unordinary Deaths of Ordinary People
On the first day of the Chuseok holiday, news of a sudden death came from a rooftop apartment in a residential area of ​​Seoul. The house was covered in dust, and the bookshelves were filled with civil service exam preparation materials. The lonely death of a 42-year-old man. He had graduated from a prestigious private university. The year he graduated, the Asian Financial Crisis hit, and he too faced the difficult employment situation. While preparing for employment, his parents unexpectedly passed away, and his husband also became ill. He was eventually found dead in his home alone a week later. People who had dreamed of an ordinary life were ending their lives in an extraordinary way.

■ "We give up my father's body" - Family of a man who died alone
At a police station in Seoul, three people sign a piece of paper. They are the son, daughter, and ex-wife of a man in his fifties who was found dead a week later. They have come to refuse to claim the body. Their family was torn apart by their father's financial inability, and the rest of their family struggled afterward. The reporting team repeatedly witnessed children, siblings, and relatives abandoning the body.

Lonely deaths embodied all the problems of our society: the economic crisis, unemployment, the breakdown of families and polarization. Increasing urbanization, anonymity, and individualism. Once someone's father, once someone's neighbor, they were left alone, isolated from society, and ultimately forgotten by seemingly insignificant events.

※ This video is from [KBS Panorama - Koreans' Solitary Deaths (Part 1) Invisible Deaths, A Year's Record], which aired on May 22, 2014.

#SolitaryDeath #Life #Life

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