Uncovering How Itaewon Halloween Crush Killed 156 People
Halloween sounds super thrilling and fun. People from around the world dressed up and mostly complimented with laughter and smiles. But South Korea might not feel the same again after a tragedy in Itaewon. But how did a supposedly-fun festive night become one of the worst disasters ever?
Halloween Night Disaster in Itaewon
On Saturday, October 30th, where it marks Halloween Weekend Night, most people celebrate by going out. One of the most anticipated venues for the celebration is Itaewon, a district located in central Seoul city, South Korea. Itaewon is one of the famous neighborhoods for nightlife gatherings, as the area hosts many nightclubs, restaurants and bars. It has long been a popular place to celebrate Halloween in this district. Some people from various countries even purposely come here for the festivities.
Every year, hundreds of thousands of revelers seek Halloween activities in Itaewon. The police had predicted that there will be over 100,000 people who will visit the district this year as people will celebrate the first Halloween free from pandemic-related restrictions.
In fact, thousands of mainly young people had converged in Itaewon in Halloween costumes that day. Some accounts even mentioned that there were more than 130,000 people that had descended in the area that evening.
How did the tragedy escalate?
The celebration started fine in the beginning until there was an increase of crowds at night. An attendee reported that it was at least 10 times more crowded than usual. It was about 22:20 local time (KST) when the situation turned desperate. Several people fell over on the sloping pathway, causing a massive crush. The crowds were pressing from both ends of the alley and made it impossible to exit the area.
According to emergency personnel, they received at least 81 calls by people experiencing compressive suffocation. The authorities dispatched the ambulances but had a hard time getting to the scene due to the enormous throng. Hundreds of people were so tightly crammed and entangled together that first responders were unable to pull individuals out, delaying critical first aid and resuscitation. Itaewon is mostly one long road stretching east to west and the surroundings are usually only accessible through a series of narrow alleyways, which if it is congested, will be very suffocating.
Why this never happened before?
After a break of two years, the Halloween celebration has been silenced by the restrictions and mask mandates. This year, the area finally hosted its first Halloween celebrations with the restrictions lifted. People were excited as this was the first Halloween unmasked event after a long-due hiatus. Especially after many countries have lifted the borders to travel, not only locals, but people from around the world came here to celebrate this thrilling event.
Nuhyil Ahammed, 32, an IT worker from India was in the crowd. He lives nearby and has been to Halloween parties in Itaewon for the last 5 years, but says things were very different this year.
He mentioned that there were more policies in the area last year, he had never seen a gathering like this time before and it seems like there was “no crowd control”.
Many eyewitnesses lamented the absence of crowd control procedure. The National Police Agency stated that they dispatched a total of 137 police officers to the district on Saturday. And they were tasked with curbing crimes, not crowd control.
Victim varies from locals to foreigners
Most of the casualties were young, mostly teens and in their 20s. It is stated that this tragedy has killed at least 156 people and injured more than 152 people. Among the 156 deceased victims, 26 people are foreigners from several countries.
As of Monday, the tragedy killed a total of 101 women and 55 men. Many have questioned why women were fatally injured in the disaster at a significantly higher rate than men. This led to discussion on how women were more fatally injured in this case by Park Jae-Sung, professor of fire and disaster prevention at Soongsil Cyber University.
According to authorities, there have been more than 4,000 missing individuals reported. Police did not do an active search for those reports as they believed the number could include multiple reports for the same individuals, instead the reports have been used to identify the dead victims.
