Monday, October 31, 2022
The incident took place as a large number of people fell down in a narrow alley during the Halloween events in South Korean capital Seoul, capital’s leisure district of Itaewon. A mass of mostly young people celebrating Halloween festivities in Seoul became trapped and crushed as the crowd surged into a narrow alley, killing at least 153 people and injuring 82 others in South Korea’s worst disaster in years. Today, Seoul mourns with white chrysanthemums, drinks and candles at a small makeshift altar off an exit of the Itaewon subway station, a few steps away from the site of the crush. Another memorial for the victims was set up at Seoul City Hall Plaza.
The emergency workers and pedestrians desperately performed CPR on people lying in the streets after the crush in the capital’s leisure district of Itaewon Saturday night.
Those killed or hurt were mostly teens and people in their 20s, according to Choi Seong-beom, chief of Seoul’s Yongsan fire department. The dead included 19 foreigners, he said, whose nationalities weren’t immediately released. The death toll could rise further as 19 of those injured were in critical condition.
An estimated 1,00,000 people had gathered in Itaewon for the country’s biggest outdoor Halloween festivities since the pandemic began. The South Korean government eased COVID-19 restrictions in recent months. Itaewon, near where the former headquarters of U.S. military forces in South Korea operated before moving out of the capital in 2018, is an expat-friendly district known for its trendy bars, clubs and restaurants.
It was not immediately clear what led the crowd to surge into the narrow downhill alley near the Hamilton Hotel, a major party spot in Seoul. One survivor said many people fell and toppled one another “like dominos” after they were being pushed by others. The survivor, surnamed Kim, said they were trapped for about an hour and a half before being rescued, as some people shouted “Help me!” and others were short of breath, according to the Seoul-based Hankyoreh newspaper.
Another survivor, named Lee Chang-kyu, said he saw about five to six men push others before one or two began falling, according to the newspaper.
Shops and cafes nearby were closed and police cordoned off the site of the incident, which was strewn with rubbish. Schools, kindergartens and companies around the country scrapped planned Halloween events. K-pop concerts and government briefings were also cancelled.
South Korean prime minister Han Duck-soo promised an investigation into the disaster as calls for accountability grew in the press and online.
As many as 100,000 people – mostly in their teens and 20s, many wearing Halloween costumes – had poured into Itaewon’s small, winding streets, but witnesses reported seeing a relatively small number of police on the streets in relation to the size of the crowds.
Itaewon is part of Yongsan, one of the Korean capital’s 25 districts. On 28 October the district announced its plans for managing the Halloween celebrations in Itaewon, a gathering that attracts huge crowds but has no official organiser. The authority laid out measures including anti-COVID-19 precautions, safety checks for bars and restaurants, rubbish management and anti-drug policies, but nothing on how to control the revellers who were expected to converge on the area.
The last South Korean disaster this deadly also hit young people the hardest. In April 2014, 304 people, mostly high school students, died in a ferry sinking. The sinking exposed lax safety rules and regulatory failures; it was partially blamed on excessive and poorly fastened cargo and a crew poorly trained for emergency situations. Saturday’s deaths will likely draw public scrutiny of what government officials have done to improve public safety standards since the ferry disaster.
It was also Asia’s second major crushing disaster in a month. On October 1, police in Indonesia fired tear gas at a soccer match, causing a crush that killed 132 people as spectators attempted to flee.
More than 1,700 response personnel from across the country were deployed to the streets to help the wounded, including about 520 firefighters, 1,100 police officers and 70 government workers. The National Fire Agency separately said in a statement that officials were still trying to determine the exact number of emergency patients.
South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol issued a statement calling for officials to ensure swift treatment for those injured and review the safety of the festivity sites.
This was the deadliest crushing disaster in South Korean history. In 2005, 11 people were killed and around 60 others were injured at a pop concert in the southern city of Sangju.
Tags: Asia, Halloween, Halloween Tragedy, Seoul
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