South Korean Halloween Tragedy

**CONTENT WARNING: mentions of death and injury

On October 29th, as many as one hundred thousand people had descended on Itaewon in the center of Seoul, South Korea. A Halloween celebration quickly turned into a deadly crush as crowds grew with little police control.

Social media shows that people began arriving from early evening into the night. Around 5pm, attendees already began posting online that the streets were feeling unsafe because of the already-large crowd and at 6:34pm—many hours before the deadly stampede—the first call to the police was made. According to the BBC, the police officer told the first caller that an officer would be sent but no significant reinforcements arrived until several hours later. Authorities say that they had 137 police officers in Itaewon that night but they were quickly outmatched by the growing crowd. In the subsequent three and a half hours, the area received at least ten more emergency calls. 

Callers described people getting injured and pushed. Police then reassured them that officers would be sent to the scene but out of eleven calls made to the police, officers were only sent for four of them. Calls made after 9:07 pm - the hour leading up to the fatal crush - did not get any officers dispatched. The last call was made at 10:11pm and the caller said "it feels like people can get crushed here." (BBC)

Minutes later, the deadly crush began. It started at a narrow alley outside the second exit of the Itaewon subway station. By 10:21pm, people started taking desperate measures, some trying to scale walls to get out of the crowd. At 10:23pm, a first responder said that they “received more than five reports that people fell, and they could either get hurt or die.” (CNN) Images posted to social media showed scores of bodies piled atop one another in the narrow alley as emergency crews worked to pull them free. First responders arriving on the scene had a difficult time reaching those who needed help due to the high density of people and panic. (NYT)

The Seoul government issued an emergency alert to residents in the Itaewon area at 11:55 p.m., informing them that there had been an "emergency accident near the Hamilton Hotel" and requesting that vehicles turn away for safety reasons. It read “citizens, please return home as soon as possible,” a plea that would be repeated in following alerts in the next hours. Around 12:14am, the country’s National Police Agency made its first report to agency chief Yoon Hee-keun and President Yoon Suk Yeol dispatched a disaster medical assistance team.

The death toll would rise throughout the night and following days, finally reaching 154 people dead and dozens more injured. (CNN) Though sunset on Saturday, October 29th had been the picture of celebration and excitement, sunrise on Sunday turned into a grim procession of bodies. 

If you ever find yourself in a risky crowd, there are steps that you can take to keep yourself safe. CNN and Washington Post, as well as a deluge of other sources, have helpful tips on how to recognize a dangerous crowd and escape an unsafe situation

by ATREYI BASU