A mass of mostly young people celebrating Halloween festivities 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 crash in the capital’s leisure district of Itaewon Saturday night.
Choi Seong-beom, chief of Seoul’s Yongsan fire department, said the death toll could rise further and that an unspecified number of the injured were in critical condition.
Since the pandemic started, Itaewon has hosted the largest outdoor Halloween celebrations in the nation, with an estimated 100,000 visitors.
What prompted the mob to pour into the small, downhill lane close to the Hamilton Hotel, a popular Seoul nightlife destination, was not immediately clear.
One witness claimed that after being pushed by others, numerous individuals collapsed and toppled one another “like dominos.” According to the Seoul-based Hankyoreh newspaper, the survivor, who went by the name of Kim, claimed they were imprisoned for nearly an hour and a half before being freed. During that time, some people yelled “Help me!” and others were gasping for air.
According to the newspaper, Lee Chang-kyu, another survivor, claimed that he witnessed five to six men pushing one another before one or two of them started to collapse.
In a statement, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol urged officials to guarantee that individuals who were hurt received prompt medical attention and to assess the festival locations’ security.
The disaster that killed the most people in South Korea was this one. In 2005, at a music event in the southern city of Sangju, 11 people died and another 60 others were hurt.
