The day after the stampede that killed 153 people in Seoul, Marion, a French influencer on vacation in South Korea and present in the Itaewon district where the tragedy occurred, testified on BFMTV.
With friends and her two daughters, the youngest being 9 years old, she went to this supposedly “festive” neighborhood for Halloween, around 8 pm “Dès notre arrivée à la station de métro, je n’avais jamais vu ça. Il y avait énormément de monde. On a mis presque 40 minutes pour sortir. Mais les gens étaient calmes. Personne ne se bousculait”, raconte-t-ella.
After having dinner on steps, high up, Marion and her relatives decided to return. It was then 9:30 p.m. They took a wide avenue that led to the subway and began to have trouble approaching Itaewon Station. As they walked, they reached the level of the alley where the drama occurred, which cuts the avenue perpendicularly. Caught in the crowd, the group split in two. Marion ended up with her nine-year-old daughter, who was struggling to keep her head up:
“We couldn’t move forward at all. (…) At the time, I was scared. Fortunately, since we were at the bottom of the alley, we managed year after year to end up on the road with the cars. We went down as fast as possible and went to take the subway one station past Itaewon.”
“Shaking chills”
Thus, Marion and her daughters narrowly escaped the mob movement, which they later followed on news channels and social media. They took the subway around 10 at night, so it took almost thirty minutes to go down the avenue, when normally it only takes five.
“The only thing we saw was the arrival of the ambulances. But not for a second did I think of a movement of crowds,” she says.
Waking up this Sunday morning, the influencer felt “chills”: “If we had left these steps a little later, if we had walked higher, we would not have come out of this massive movement.” She remained “shocked” all day, but she said she measured luck with her relatives that she was able to return safely. “Before the tragedy, those present were smiling, happy, they hugged each other. It’s scary to think that the evening ended like this, ”she concludes.
This Sunday, the president of South Korea, Yoon Suk-yeol, declared national mourning, lamenting “a tragedy and a disaster that should not have happened.” He promised that a “rigorous” investigation would bring to light this deadly movement of crowds.
Source: BFM TV
