On Tuesday (1 Nov), South Korean national police chief Yoon Hee-keun made a public apology following the deadly crowd crush in Itaewon, Seoul.
At least 156 people passed away after around 100,000 people packed into a narrow alley in the popular nightlife district for Halloween festivities over the weekend.
“In order to clearly uncover the truth and determine responsibility, we will conduct an intensive inspection and investigation into all areas in a swift and thorough manner,” The Korea Herald reported Mr Yoon as saying.
BBC reports that on Saturday (29 Oct), police started receiving emergency calls at 6.34pm about the growing crowd situation in the Itaewon area.
Over the next 3.5 hours, they received a total of 11 calls.
According to Reuters, police released transcripts of the emergency calls, which painted a picture of the growing panic before the incident.
In the first call, someone warned that people could get “crushed to death” if human traffic kept increasing without any room to move.
Source: Reuters
While the person said they’d managed to leave, they urged police to come and control the crowd situation.
In another call, someone reported that people were falling down on the streets. And the ominous last call at 10.11pm, minutes before the crushing started, warned that people “will get crushed to death”.
The transcript notes that screams could be heard over the phone.
By then, the crowd had surged to the point where movement wasn’t possible, and witnesses said there was pushing.
“It is judged that the response in the field handling emergency calls was insufficient,” Mr Yoon said during the press conference.
Source: Yonhap via Korea Herald
He pledged that an independent body would be set up internally to investigate the disaster thoroughly.
Reuters reports that Minister of the Interior and Safety Lee Sang-min also apologised. He vowed to uncover the cause of the stampede and prevent similar incidents from happening again.
Following the stampede, South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol declared a week of national mourning.
He called for better crowd control as well, stating that the country should come up with “concrete safety measures” not just on the streets, but in other venues where large groups of people tend to congregate.
The Halloween party had no central organiser and crowd control by police proved inadequate.
Controversially, there were allegations that clubs and bars had shut their doors, preventing escape from the crowded alleys.
The victims of the crowd crush have since been identified and the public may pay their respects to them at memorials altars across the city.
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Featured image adapted from Yonhap via Korea Herald.
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