The deadliest stampede tragedy in Korean history occurred on the evening of October 29 in Itaewon – the country’s famous nightlife area, after tens of thousands of people flocked to the area to participate in the Halloween festival. , follow Yonhap.
Park Jung Hoon (21 years old), told Reuters that the situation was “completely out of control”.
Meanwhile, Moon Ju Young, 21, shared, “The scene was at least 10 times more crowded than usual.”
Moon described: “There are too many people and too many people”.
“I know the police and lifeguards are working hard, but they were unprepared,” she said.
An Itaewon resident, Lee Su Mi (53 years old), told Reuters that “In the era of living with Covid-19, young people known as the ‘Covid-19 generation’ are finally able to celebrate Halloween as their first festival.”
“However, no one would have expected the festival to turn into such a disaster,” she added.
Residents said businesses in the nightlife area were looking forward to the big festivals, after tough times over the past few years.
“Falling like a domino”
This is the first Halloween event in Seoul in three years after South Korea lifted many restrictions on Covid-19 prevention. It is estimated that about 100,000 people have flocked to the area. Dozens of bars and restaurants were packed with people dressed in Halloween costumes.
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| A woman covering her face sobs at a community service center after the tragedy in Seoul, South Korea, on October 30. Image: Reuters. |
Follow Yonhap, the authorities initially received dozens of reports in the Itaewon area about people having difficulty breathing. The first report appeared around 10:15 pm.
Officials said the crowd began to push forward in a steep alley about four meters wide near the Hamilton Hotel, a party spot in Seoul.
Some local media reports earlier said many people went to a bar after a celebrity appeared.
Follow New York Times, Janelle Story – 35 years old, an English teacher – said a group of people rushed towards her around 10:30pm. She said she was standing near the alley where the incident happened.
“The sea of people rushed towards us very quickly. It happened so suddenly,” she said. She was very worried but at first thought it was a drunken crowd causing disorder.
She left at 11 p.m. and didn’t know about the tragedy until she returned home.
Seon Yeo Jeong, a Korean YouTuber, recalled seeing people screaming. She describes herself being swayed back and forth as if in a “tuck tug” before being squeezed both front and back.
“If my friend hadn’t hugged me and helped me, I think I would have fainted and fell to the ground,” she said.
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| Experts say stampedes like the one at Itaewon this time can happen when too many people are crammed into an enclosed space. Image: Straits Times. |
An exciting Saturday night with 17-year-old Kim Seo Jeong turned into a deadly Halloween when she was among thousands of people stuck in a small alley.
“The people behind me fell like dominoes,” the student said. “There were people below and above me. I have trouble breathing. We screamed and cried for help, but the music was so loud it drowned out our screams.”
“People were constantly pushing down a steep alley, resulting in a lot of people screaming and falling like dominoes,” he said. Yonhap quoted another unnamed witness. “I thought I was going to be crushed to death as well as people kept pushing and shoving without realizing someone had fallen at the start of the stampede.”
A woman in her 20s, surnamed Park, said the stampede started when people flocked to the small street for a short period of time. “A short person like me can’t even breathe,” Ms. Park said. “I survived by standing on the side of the alley. Those in the middle (the crowd) suffer the most.”
Ulas Cetinkaya, 36, an employee at a barbecue shop opposite the alley where the stampede took place, described: “I have never seen such a large crowd in my life, except maybe at Demonstration”.
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| The location of the stampede in the Itaewon neighborhood. Graphics: Marco Hernandez. |
Meanwhile, some blame the owners of nearby bars and clubs. “Injuries were more severe when people tried to escape by going to nearby shops, but they were kicked out into the street because work hours were over.” Yonhap quoted one survivor as saying.
Footage and photos from the scene show emergency workers and pedestrians performing CPR on victims lying on the street. The bodies of the victims lay in rows, temporarily covered with blankets, according to Guardian.
Witnesses described police as having difficulty controlling the crowd.
Footage on social media showed hundreds of people stuck in the alley and unable to move, while police and rescuers tried to pull them out. One woman said her daughter had been stuck for more than an hour.
The nearest fire department and first responder center is just over 200 meters from the alley. However, it is difficult for them to access the scene partly because the alley is only 4 meters wide, while on one side are bars and shops, on the other is the wall of the Hamilton hotel.
Follow New York Times, Korea’s Minister of Interior and Safety, Lee Sang Min, said that the police did not expect this year’s Halloween to be more crowded than previous years, so they did not deploy additional staff to this area. He added that some officers were deployed to large-scale protests in the city.
The exact cause of the tragedy is still under investigation. Police plan to open an investigation soon into whether bars and clubs in the area are complying with safety regulations.
Thousands of missing reports
As of October 31, a total of 153 people, including 26 foreigners, were killed, according to CNN.
In addition, 82 other people were injured, 19 of them seriously, according to Choi Seong Beom, head of Yongsan Fire Department.
Of the 153 ill-fated victims, there are 97 women and 56 men. Mr. Choi said many of the victims were women in their 20s. It was not immediately clear if any of the victims were underage.
Meanwhile, foreign victims came from 14 countries. An official of the Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs previously informed Reuters that Iran, Uzbekistan, China, Norway, Australia, the United States, France, Kazakhstan, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Austria and Vietnam were among the countries where citizens died.
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| Rescue officials at the area where many people were injured in the stampede in Itaewon on the night of October 29. Image: Reuters. |
As of noon on October 30, the Seoul government said it had received 3,580 reports of missing people related to the tragedy.
Officials urged reporters to provide a detailed description of a loved one’s physical appearance or identity when the number of victims is so large that identification is difficult, according to the report. New York Times.
South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol arrived at the scene on the morning of October 30. He also declared national mourning for the victims. The period of national mourning will last until the handling of the accident is completed.
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| South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol at the scene of the tragedy. Image: Reuters. |
Korean Prime Minister Han Duck Soo at noon on October 30 declared Itaewon, the scene of the tragedy, as a disaster area until noon on November 5.
Before that, right after receiving information about the incident, Mr. Yoon ordered an emergency response team to be established to investigate the incident.
Why was the stampede so tragic?
According to Professor G. Keith Still, a crowd safety expert at the University of Suffolk (UK), stampedes like this one at Itaewon can happen when too many people are crammed into an enclosed space.
If there is a trigger – like a jostling or someone tripping – that causes the whole crowd to fall, a “domino effect” occurs.
“The whole crowd fell at once,” Professor Still remarked to Washington Post. “If they’re in an enclosed space, they can’t get up anymore.”
Besides, when many people run away, a stampede can also happen. However, this is not what happened in Itaewon, Mr. Still said.
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| Ambulances and rescue workers arrive at the scene of a stampede in Itaewon, Seoul. Image: AP. |
In a post on Twitter, one person claiming to be at the scene described the crowd as “falling down like dominoes and screaming”.
“I really feel like I’m being crushed to death,” another post shared. “I breathed through a small hole and cried thinking I was going to die.” The author of the article – standing near the top of the crowd – said people there cried “Save us”, before being pulled up by people nearby.
During the stampede, the pressure from both below and above makes it very easy for the receiver to breathe, because the lungs need space to breathe. After about six minutes, the trapped people fell into a state of suffocation – the main cause of death for the victims, Professor Still said.
In addition to suffocation, victims can also injure limbs, or lose consciousness when trying to breathe or escape the crowd. After only 30 seconds of being pinched, the amount of blood to the brain can be restricted, causing dizziness.
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| Police at the scene after the tragedy on October 30. Image: AP. |
According to Professor Still, stampedes are rarely caused by people losing their cool, trying to escape a crowd. Instead, he pointed out, they only lost their cool when they started to fall.
“People don’t die from panic, they panic because they’re going to die,” he said. “When people fall together, when people fall on top of each other, everyone tries to get up, causing their limbs to get tangled together.”
This phenomenon has happened many times around the world. Less than a month ago, a stampede at a stadium in Malang, Indonesia left more than 130 people – including children – dead.
In November 2021, another stampede occurred at a music night in Texas (USA), causing the deaths of 10 people. The scene of the tragedy was surrounded by a steel fence, causing the victims to be squeezed. Meanwhile, the authorities have no way to regulate the flow of people.
According to Professor Norman Badler at the University of Pennsylvania, although the tragedy at Itaewon happened on the street, the density of people was so high that it was difficult for them to move. In addition, there are no horizontal exits at the scene.
Over the past year, mass events are being held more often as the epidemic prevention measures are lifted. According to Professor Still, people tend to go to events more after being unable to attend for a long time.
The professor emphasized the importance of crowd control training, which may have been overlooked during the pandemic.
Mr. Martin Amos, professor at Northumbria University (UK), points out that crowded events need to be carefully planned. Meanwhile, officials need to be trained to deal with crowds.
“Incidents like this will continue to happen as long as we have the right crowd control procedures in place, which help anticipate, detect and prevent dangerously high concentrations of crowds,” said Amos. talk to Washington Post.
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