The party turned tragic. At least 153 people were killed in Seoul, South Korea, on Saturday night in a stampede during Halloween celebrations. But how could a festive event provoke such a movement of crowds in the heart of the South Korean capital?
100,000 partygoers
The night begins like many Saturday nights in Seoul: young people head to the Itaewon district to meet and have fun. The place is trendy, known for its many bars. A successful TV series in the country, “Itaewon Class”, which aired in 2020, is further increasing its popularity.
Partygoers are particularly numerous this Saturday – around 100,000 according to local media – to pack the narrow streets. After years of the pandemic, these are the first major public Halloween celebrations.
The crowd is thus of an “unprecedented” size, district merchants describe to AFP. “It was packed,” says Beta Bayusantika, a 27-year-old Indonesian woman who witnessed the event, in the times of korea.
A sudden movement of panic.
Despite the number of people present, the evening started out quiet and revelers did not seem concerned about the density of the crowd, according to videos posted on social media by people present at the scene.
However, some witnesses said they were concerned. “Before the accident, I found myself trapped in the crowd and couldn’t get out. I felt like an accident was going to happen,” Jeon Ga-Eul told BFMTV.
Suddenly the atmosphere changes. According to one young woman, the change comes after the crowd sways back and forth repeatedly. One of her friends was found trapped under several people, she told the Korean news agency YNA.
Another young woman speaks of a sudden influx of revelers in an alley, while others say that owners of several bars in the area blocked off an already crowded alley, preventing many people from evacuating.
For some local media there was also a rumor that a celebrity had just arrived at one of the bars in the neighborhood. This would explain why a sudden movement of the crowd began.
People “fall like dominoes”
The images show people gasping for air. “A little person like me couldn’t breathe. I got away with it because he was on my side,” another YNA girl said.
Some try to break free, but lose their balance. “People kept pushing in an alley so people started screaming and falling like dominoes,” a witness described on Twitter.
“There were so many people. I had to turn to the crowd and say ‘you can’t go that way, people are dying,'” Nathan Taverniti, an Australian witness, told BFMTV through tears.
“They were panicking and that made the situation worse. There was noise everywhere… People’s screams drowned out all other sounds,” another 40-year-old American witness, Jarmil Taylor, told AFP.
In the chaos, some even wonder if an explosion or fire or distribution of “dope candy” did not occur, explaining the environmental madness. Rumors now denied by the police.
Not enough police on site?
In the face of the unfolding tragedy, the police are having a hard time managing the terrified crowd, according to some witnesses. “There weren’t many police compared to the number of people present,” he estimates in the times of korea Osman Karakan, a young man present at the scene.
Not knowing what is happening in front of them, the people behind keep moving forward. “We were yelling at them to back off, but it was already too late,” Jerome Augusta, an American witness, told AFP.
The emergency services received around 22:24 local time, the first calls reporting people “crushed” in the crowd. They are quickly overwhelmed, sending over 1,700 people to the scene to care for many people in cardiac arrest.
“The emergency services took a long time to arrive,” laments Nathan Taverniti.
Cardiac massages on the street
At the scene, it is difficult to free people with breathing difficulties, as they are trapped in a compact crowd. Many young women find themselves stranded and lengthen the list of victims.
Because of her “smaller size, I think her diaphragm was crushed, and because they were in a panic, it made (the situation) even more chaotic,” said AFP Judge Jerome Augusta, an American witness. Unable to care for all the wounded, caretakers beckon bystanders for help and transform the streets into an open-air recovery room.
“They were asking people to do heart massages here and there. It was completely out of control,” recalls Park Jung-Hoon, on BFMTV.
But it is already too late for many young people. During the night, the bodies are lined up on the ground, with their faces covered by a tarp or a simple garment.
overwhelmed hospitals
Slowly, word spread that a tragedy had hit the Itaewon district, and worried parents rushed to the scene or nearby hospitals to search for their son.
A mother with no news of her son tells the herald of korea going back and forth between Itaweon and a hospital in Seoul. “Where should I go? Please,” she begs the police, who say she can’t say anything. They add that due to lack of space the bodies have been transferred to other hospitals or gyms.
The responsibility of the authorities, after the tragedy, is questioned. “The government will rigorously investigate the cause so that such an accident does not happen again in the future,” the South Korean president promised.
Source: BFM TV
