South Korea Mourns 154 People Killed In Crowd Surge At Halloween Celebrations
South Koreans Monday conducted memorials honouring the 154 people killed in a crowd surge at Halloween celebrations.
Mourners wept, prayed and placed flowers at a huge official altar set up in central Seoul for victims, mostly young women, of the Saturday crush, with many railing against authorities’ failures to prevent the catastrophic loss of young life.
A 19-year-old student Hwang Gyu-hyeon told AFP that she was devastated by what happened, adding that the victims were just trying to have a good time. She added:
I pray for the victims. I can’t believe this accident happened despite the signs that were clear beforehand. Nothing was done to prepare for this crowd.
Song Jung-hee, 69, said she kept thinking about how “excited and spirited” the young victims must have been, eager to enjoy a night out without COVID-19 restrictions for the first time in three years.
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She told AFP that the presence of more police officers to keep order could have avoided the tragedy.
Calls for accountability were growing Monday in the press and online, as potential lapses of crowd control and policing emerged.
As many as 100 000 people, mostly in their teens and 20s, many wearing Halloween costumes, had poured into Itaewon’s small, winding streets, with eyewitnesses describing scant security and no crowd control.
Police insisted their crowd control policies were not to blame.
Police said at a briefing Monday they had deployed 137 officers to the event, pointing out that the number was significantly higher than in previous years.
But local reports said many of the police deployed were focused on drug use, rather than crowd control.
