SEOUL - As South Koreans mourn the death of 155 people in an unprecedented crowd crush at Seoul’s nightlife district Itaewon during the Halloween festivities, questions are being raised about poor crowd management and insufficient police deployment, which may have contributed to the disaster.
Some 10,000 people visited memorial sites set up all over the country to pay respects to the victims on Monday, most of them in their 20s and 30s.
Hundreds of revellers got stuck in an entangled pile last Saturday when crowds moving in opposite directions converged in a narrow downhill alley next to the iconic Hamilton Hotel, causing some to fall and trigger a domino effect.
Many of those who were caught at the bottom died of asphyxia or cardiac arrest.
The death toll, which includes 26 foreigners from Iran, China and Russia, is expected to rise as 30 people are seriously injured. Another 122 people sustained minor injuries.
Addressing concerns raised about lax crowd control, President Yoon Suk-yeol has ordered the government to come up with a crowd management system for similar events that draw huge crowds.
The President, who visited a memorial at Seoul Plaza on Monday, “feels an indescribable sadness and responsibility for the people’s lives and safety when he thinks of the victims and their families”, according to his spokesman.
Mr Yoon also stressed the importance of a thorough investigation into the cause of the accident and revealing the real cause of the tragedy, which he said will help the government to prepare a safety management system to prevent crowd accidents in future.
Itaewon is known to draw a surge of revellers over Halloween, Christmas, long weekends, and the annual Itaewon Global Village Festival.
Only the Global Village Festival is subject to safety measures for big crowds imposed by the government, as it is organised by the Yongsan District Office which oversees Itaewon. Roads are also closed to make way for performances and food and cultural stalls.
Safety measures for such festivals were reportedly strengthened in the wake of a pop concert stampede in southern city Sangju that killed 11 people and injured about 60 others in 2005.
But the rules do not apply to Halloween or Christmas parties where there is no central organiser. Crowd control is left to individual businesses, some of whom hire bouncers to keep queues in order.
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2022-10-31 16:09:46Z
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