The South Korean Police Agency will request an investigation from the commissioner of the Yongsan area in Seoul and the official responsible for supervising emergencies in the metropolitan area of the South Korean capital.
The decision came after mounting criticism of police inaction in preventing a stampede at a Halloween party in Seoul on Saturday that killed more than 150 people, especially after authorities were reported to have received 11 emergency calls to warn of overcrowding in space. hours before the tragedy, the South Korean news agency Yonhap reported.
The authorities must form a special team to investigate Lee Im-jae, head of the Yongsan Police Station, who is monitoring the Itaewon neighborhood where the incident occurred, and Ryu Mi-jin, who is responsible for monitoring the situation at the Seoul Metropolitan Police, for alleged negligence in carrying out their duties, Yonhap added.
The South Korean National Police Agency has already suspended Lee and Ryu from the service.
South Korean Interior Minister Lee Sang-min apologized on Tuesday for the stampede that caused at least 156 deaths among young people celebrating Halloween night.
This was the first official apology since the tragedy, which occurred when some 100,000 people flocked to Itaewon, an area of restaurants, bars and nightclubs in a maze of steep, narrow alleys along one of Seoul’s main avenues. .
South Korea’s police chief had already admitted that the security force received multiple warnings “that a large crowd had gathered even before the accident occurred, indicating urgent danger”.
The ruling party in South Korea has announced that it intends to review the security and disaster management law in the wake of the stampede.
Seoul City Hall has a real-time crowd control system that uses mobile phone data to predict the size of attendance at an event, but it was not used on Saturday night, according to local media.
Source: TSF
