SEOUL — More than 150 people, mostly young costumed partygoers in their teens and 20s, were killed in a crowd surge and stampede at a Halloween event in Seoul’s popular Itaewon nightlife
It is the worst-ever stampede in South Korea’s history and President Yoon Suk-yeol has ordered a full investigation and vowed such a tragedy will never be allowed to happen again.Up to 100,000 people descended on Seoul’s popular Itaewon district Saturday night for the first Halloween event without COVID-19 restrictions in three years.
“People couldn’t move forward and were pushing and pushing, and it was a steep hill so people were falling on top of each other, collapsing on top of each other,” eyewitness Jarmil Taylor, 40, told AFP. Eye-witnesses also described seeing people falling and getting trapped by the crowd before being trampled and crushed.
In documents posted two days before the event, the police said they only planned to have 200 officers present for the Itaewon Halloween event.“This is a man-made disaster prompted by a lack of awareness about safety,” said Shin Dong-min, a professor at the Korea National University of Transportation.
“I was walking by but stopped to help with CPR because it looked like an emergency situation,” Min Byung-yeon, a former nurse, told YTN.
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