At least 146 die in crush of Halloween crowd in Seoul

SEOUL — A mass of mostly young people celebrating Halloween festivities on Saturday night in Seoul became trapped and crushed as the crowd surged into a narrow alley, killing at least 146 people and injuring 150 others in South Korea’s worst disaster in years.

Emergency workers and pedestrians desperately performed CPR on people lying in the streets after the crush in the capital’s entertainment district of Itaewon.

Choi Seong-beom, chief of Seoul’s Yongsan fire department, said the death toll could rise and that an unspecified number among the injured were in critical condition.

An estimated 100,000 people had gathered in Itaewon for the country’s biggest outdoor Halloween celebration since the pandemic began. The South Korean government recently eased COVID-19 restrictions. Itaewon is known for its trendy bars, clubs and restaurants.

It was not immediately clear what led the crowd to press into the narrow downhill alley near the Hamilton Hotel. One survivor said many people fell and toppled each other “like dominos” after they were pushed by others. The survivor, surnamed Kim, said they were trapped before being rescued, as some people shouted “Help me!” and others were short of breath, according to the Seoul-based Hankyoreh newspaper.

In an interview with news channel YTN, Hwang Min-hyeok, a visitor to Itaewon, said it was shocking to see rows of bodies near the hotel. He said emergency workers were initially overwhelmed, leaving pedestrians struggling to administer CPR to the injured lying on the streets. People wailed beside the bodies of their friends, he said.

Choi, the fire department chief, said bodies were being sent to hospitals and a gym where bereaved family members could identify them. He said most of the dead and injured are in their 20s.

The last South Korean disaster this deadly also hit young people the hardest. In April 2014, 304 victims, mostly high school students, died in a ferry sinking that exposed lax safety rules and regulatory failures. Saturday’s deaths will likely draw public scrutiny of what government officials have, or have not, done to improve public safety standards since the ferry disaster.

More than 1,700 response personnel from across the country were deployed to help the wounded, including 520 firefighters, 1,100 police officers and 70 government workers.

South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol issued a statement calling for officials to ensure swift treatment for the injured and to review the safety of festivity sites.