(The story contains disturbing description and video)
SEOUL: Concerned relatives raced to hospitals in search of their loved ones Sunday as South Korea mourned the deaths of at least 153 people, mostly in their teens and 20s, who got trapped and crushed after a huge Halloween party crowd surged into a narrow alley in a nightlife district in Seoul, clogging the area's narrow alleyways and winding streets.
An estimated 100,000 people had gathered in Itaewon for the country’s biggest outdoor Halloween festivities since the pandemic began. The South Korean government eased COVID-19 restrictions in recent months.
Witnesses said the crowd surge in the capital's popular Itaewon area on Saturday night caused “hell-like” chaos as people fell on each other “like dominos.” Some people were bleeding from their noses and mouths while being given CPR, witnesses said, while others clad in Halloween costumes continued to sing and dance nearby, possibly without knowing the severity of the situation.
President Yoon Suk-yeol declared a period of national mourning Sunday, telling the country in a televised address that "a tragedy and disaster occurred that should not have happened".
He said the government "will thoroughly investigate the cause of the incident and make fundamental improvements to ensure the same accident does not occur again in the future".
"My heart is heavy and it is difficult to contain my sorrow," he added, before he visited the scene of the disaster and spoke to emergency workers.
While Halloween isn’t a traditional holiday in South Korea, where children rarely go trick-or-treating, it’s still a major attraction for young adults, and costume parties at bars and clubs have become hugely popular in recent years.
Itaewon, near where the former headquarters of U.S. military forces in South Korea operated before moving out of the capital in 2018, is an expat-friendly district known for its trendy bars, clubs and restaurants and it’s the city’s marquee Halloween destination.
VIEW PHOTOS | South Korea's worst-ever stampede
Rumours galore
In the absence of an immediate official explanation, rumours have exploded online.
Some users have speculated the stampede could have been triggered by a gas leak or a fire at one of the clubs, others claim the cause could have been a celebrity sighting. Online users also floated the possible use of drugs, with photos of purported "drug candies" allegedly handed out at the event circulating on Twitter.
Police have so far found no evidence of any of this. Experts, instead, point to policing and crowd control failures.
(The video below can be disturbing)
The crowd appears in good spirits at first, but then a commotion begins and people start being pushed into one another. Screams and gasps are heard and a female voice cries out in English "Shit, shit!" followed by "Oh my god, oh my god!"
Eyewitnesses described to AFP that people were trapped in a narrow, sloping alleyway, and scrambling to get out of the suffocating crowd as people piled on top of one another.
"People couldn't move forward and were pushing and pushing, and it was a steep hill so people were falling on top of each other, collapsing on top of each other," eyewitness Jarmil Taylor, 40 told AFP. "People that were at the back were pushing and pushing because they had no idea what was going on in the front", he said.
Witnesses told Associated Press the streets were so densely clogged with people and slow-moving vehicles that it was practically impossible for emergency workers and ambulances to reach the alley near Hamilton Hotel swiftly.
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Passersby asked to administer first aid
A delay in emergency first aid could also have led to more deaths, critics said, pointing out that a lack of police at the scene meant that first responders initially struggled to reach victims through overcrowded alleyways. This delay was critical as many victims who suffered cardiac arrests may have passed the crucial "four-minute" window before help arrived, experts said.
Paramedics at the scene, quickly overwhelmed by the number of victims, were asking passers-by to administer first aid.
In an interview with local broadcaster YTN, Lee Beom-suk, a doctor who administered first aid to the victims described scenes of tragedy and chaos. "So many victims' faces were pale. I could not catch their pulse or breath and many of them had a bloody nose. When I tried CPR, I also pumped blood out of their mouths," Lee Beom-suk said.
AFP photos showed scores of bodies on the pavement covered by bed sheets, and emergency workers dressed in orange vests loading even more bodies on stretchers into ambulances.
A video that circulated on Twitter (see below) showed dozens of people coming to perform CPR on victims sprawled in the street; other footage showed people in costumes carrying limp bodies on their backs.
(This tweet contains disturbing video)
