At least 153 killed in crowd crush during Halloween festivities in Seoul
South Korea was plunged into mourning as it attempted to make sense of the deaths of at least 153 people who were crushed and trampled to death in a narrow alley during Halloween celebrations in Itaewon, a packed nightlife area of Seoul.
An estimated 100,000 people, many in costume, gathered in Itaewon on Saturday night as the lifting of social distancing, mask mandates and other antiCovid measures cleared the way for the first Halloween party in three years.
Revellers reported chaotic scenes caused by the sheer volume of people on the streets before the deadly crush occurred shortly after 10pm. Many of the alleyways off the main thoroughfare in the area are narrow and sloped. It was on one such sloped street, located near the Hamilton Hotel and little more than four metres wide, that so many were killed and injured.
President Yoon Suk-yeol on Sunday declared a state of official national mourning during a live address on the tragedy.
“As president, who is responsible for the people’s lives and safety, my heart is heavy and I struggle to cope with my grief,” Yoon said. “The government will designate the period from today until the accident is brought under control as a period of national mourning and will place top priority on administrative affairs in recovery and follow-up measures.”
It was feared the death toll may rise further, as about 20 of the 82 injured were reported to be in serious condition in hospitals around the South Korean capital.
Witnesses reported seeing crowds surging in different directions and then people losing their footing on the slope, causing a domino effect. Videos posted online showed people trying to pull others out from the crush by their arms.
A witness posted on Twitter: “People kept pushing down into a downhill club alley, resulting in other people screaming and falling down like dominos. I thought I would be crushed to death too as people kept pushing without realising there were people falling down at the start of the stampede.”
Some local media reports said the crush happened after a large number of people rushed towards an Itaewon bar having heard a celebrity was visiting there.
Itaewon is known as an international district in Seoul and a US military base was located nearby until recently. Nineteen non-Koreans were reported to be among the dead, including people from China, Iran, Norway and Uzbekistan.
Most victims were in their teens and 20s, with 97 identified as female and 54 as male, according to Choi Seong-beom, head of the local fire department.
During his live televised speech, Yoon said: “We will thoroughly investigate the cause of the accident and make fundamental improvements so that similar accidents do not happen again in the future.”
He added that he was instructing relevant ministries to hold urgent safety reviews of other planned Halloween celebrations and festivals where large numbers gather. Yoon visited the site of the tragedy after his address to the nation and then went to government offices to oversee the response.
Ruling and opposition parties convened meetings on Sunday to look into the disaster and the national response.
Oh Se-hoon, the mayor of Seoul,
was cutting short a visit to Europe and returning to the city.
Flags at government agencies and other public buildings were lowered to half-mast across South Korea on Sunday. Numerous Halloween parades, concerts and other events were cancelled, including a K-pop festival due to take place on Sunday in the southern port city of Busan – expected to attract a crowd of 40,000. Shops around the country have taken down Halloween displays and decorations.
More than 400 emergency workers and 140 vehicles from around the nation, including all available personnel in Seoul, were deployed to the streets of Itaewon to treat the injured.
TV footage and photos from the scene showed ambulance vehicles queued up in streets amid a heavy police presence and emergency workers moving the injured on stretchers. Emergency workers and pedestrians were also seen performing CPR on people lying in the streets.
In one clip, paramedics were seen checking the status of a dozen or more people who lay motionless under blue blankets.
Police restricted traffic in nearby areas to speed up the transportation of the injured to hospitals across the city. Dozens of people were given CPR on Itaewon’s streets.
The Seoul metropolitan government issued emergency text messages urging people in the area to swiftly return home.
Yoon said supporting the families of the victims, including their funeral preparations, and the treatment of the injured would be a top priority for his government.
“This is really devastating,” he said in his televised speech. “The tragedy and disaster that need not have happened took place in the heart of Seoul amid Halloween [celebrations].”
Yoon called for officials to ensure swift treatment for those injured and review the safety of the festivity sites. He also instructed the health ministry to swiftly deploy disaster medical assistance teams and secure beds in nearby hospitals to treat the injured.
Officials initially had said 150 people were injured as of Sunday morning before later lowering their tally, saying more accurate numbers had emerged as rescue operations proceeded.
Witnesses described chaotic scenes before the crush, with the police on hand in anticipation of the Halloween event at times having trouble maintaining control of the crowds.
Moon Ju-young, 21, said there were clear signs of trouble in the alleys before the incident. “It was at least 10 times more crowded than usual,” he told Reuters.
An unnamed woman said her daughter and others were trapped for more than an hour before being pulled from the crush alive.
A Reuters witness said a makeshift morgue was set up in a building adjacent to the scene. About four dozen bodies were carried out on wheeled stretchers and moved to a government facility to identify the victims, according to the witness.
The Itaewon district is popular with young South Koreans and expatriates alike. Its dozens of bars and restaurants were packed on Saturday for Halloween after businesses had suffered a sharp decline over three years of the pandemic.
“You would see big crowds at Christmas and fireworks … but this was several tenfolds bigger than any of that,” Park Jung-hoon, 21, told Reuters from the scene.
The British prime minister, Rishi Sunak, tweeted: “All our thoughts are with those currently responding and all South Koreans at this very distressing time.”
The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, tweeted: “We send our thoughts and deepest condolences to the family and friends of the deceased and injured, as well as to the people [of South Korea] as they mourn this horrific tragedy.”
With the easing of the Covid pandemic, curfews on bars and restaurants and a limit of 10 people for private gatherings were lifted in April. An outdoor mask mandate was dropped in May.
Authorities said they were investigating the exact cause of the incident.
The disaster is the deadliest in South Korea since the Sewol ferry sank in 2014, killing 304 people, most of them high school students. 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 are likely to draw public scrutiny of what government officials have done to improve public safety standards since the ferry disaster.
This was the deadliest crushing disaster in South Korean history. In 2005, 11 people were killed and about 60 others injured at a pop concert in the southern city of Sangju.