On July 1 at the Chungbuk Safety Experience Center in Cheongju, North Chungcheong Province, as soon as I sat in the driver's seat of the car for the simulation of flooding, the water quickly began to rise outside the car. Soon after, water seemed to overflow out of the driver's window, and then it began pouring into the vehicle. Before I knew it, water rose to my knees and I pushed hard against the driver's door to get out of the car, but it would not budge.

"You can't open the door now, Please wait." Hwang In-seo, an instructor at the Chungbuk Safety Experience Center, who was waiting in the back seat of the vehicle, stopped me, who was struggling to open the door.

"If you are trapped inside the vehicle and try to open the door, you may end up exhausting yourself," said Hwang. "Even if you use all your strength to open the door and get out of the vehicle, there are cases where people have died because they do not have the strength to swim out of the water."

When the water level inside the vehicle was similar to the outside, the door opened easily without much effort. "If there is a 30-centimeter difference between the height of the water outside and inside the car, even a child can open the door," said Hwang, adding, "Don't panic and wait calmly."

Korea’s first water accident experience center has opened where people can learn how to deal with various water accidents. The Chungbuk Fire and Rescue Headquarters built a 2,842-square-meter water accident experience center at a cost of 13.7 billion won behind the Chungbuk Safety Experience Center and began operation in May.

The center, which consists of five experience spaces, allows visitors to experience various accidents, such as aircraft crashes, ship capsizes, and vehicle flooding. "There are several water accident experience centers across the country, but this is the only place where you can experience various water accidents that occur in aircraft, ships, and vehicles in one place," said Lee Kwang-soo, a firefighter from the Chungbuk Fire and Rescue Headquarters.

The center was designed to allow visitors to experience a similar experience to an actual accident situation.

The Air Safety Experience Center recreates the interior of a 24-seat airplane with the same shelves and third-row seats used in airplanes. The escape slide, which is used to escape from a crashed airplane into a river or ocean, was donated by local airline Aero K. Visitors experience the process of escaping from an airplane and boarding a lifeboat. After that, they also experience an “air pocket” where they enter an upside-down ship-shaped space and learn how to survive.