Seoul, South Korea crowd surge: 146 dead, official says
Police said the victim was crushed by a large crowd pushing through a narrow street during the Halloween festivities.
SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA – A crowd of mostly young people celebrating Halloween festivities in Seoul flood a narrow alley, become trapped and crushed, killing at least 146, 150 the worst in years in South Korea was injured in the disaster of
Emergency workers and pedestrians frantically performed cardiopulmonary resuscitation on people lying in the streets after being crushed in the leisure district of the capital’s Itaewon on Saturday night.
Choi Seong-bum, director of the Seoul Yongsan Fire Department, said the death toll could rise further and that an unspecified number of the injured were in critical condition.
An estimated 100,000 people have flocked to Itaewon for the country’s largest outdoor Halloween festival since the pandemic began. The South Korean government has eased restrictions on his COVID-19 in recent months. Itaewon is known for its trendy bars, clubs and restaurants, located near the site of the USFK headquarters before it was relocated from the capital in 2018.
It wasn’t immediately clear why the crowd had flooded the narrow downhill alleys near the Hamilton Hotel, Seoul’s main party spot. People said they fell and fell “like dominoes.” Kim, who survived, said he was trapped for about an hour and a half before being rescued by someone yelling “Help!” Others were out of breath, according to the Seoul-based Hankyoreh newspaper.
Another survivor, Lee Chang-gyu, said he first saw five or six men pushing others before one or two began to fall, according to the newspaper.
In an interview with the news channel YTN, Hwang Min-hyuk, who visited Itaewon, said he was shocked to see corpses lined up near his hotel. said he was having trouble administering cardiopulmonary resuscitation to the wounded lying in the street.
Another survivor, in his 20s, said he managed to enter a bar with an open door in an alley and escaped being trampled, Yonhap news agency reported. A woman in her 20s named Park told Yonhap that she and the others were standing on the side of an alleyway while others in the middle of the alleyway were unable to escape.
Fire chief Choi said the bodies will be sent to hospitals and gymnasiums so families can identify them. According to him, most of the dead and injured are in his 20s.
The last tragedy in South Korea was so deadly that it hit young people the hardest. April 2014, 304 people, mainly high school students, Died in ferry sinking accidentThe sinking exposed lax safety rules and regulatory failures. Excessive and poorly secured cargo and poorly trained crews for emergencies were partially blamed. Saturday’s death is likely to draw public attention to what government officials have been doing to improve public safety standards since the ferry accident.
It was also second in Asia Catastrophe in a month. On October 1, Indonesian police fired tear gas at a football match, causing a crash that killed 132 people as spectators tried to flee.
More than 800 paramedics and police officers from across the country, including all those available in Seoul, have been deployed to the streets to treat the wounded. In a separate statement, the Fire and Disaster Management Agency said officials were still trying to determine the exact number of emergency patients.
South Korean President Yoon Seok-yeol issued a statement urging authorities to quickly treat the injured and ensure the safety of the festival grounds.
This was the worst devastating disaster in Korean history. In 2005, he killed 11 people and injured about 60 others at a pop concert in the south of Sanju city.
https://www.wfaa.com/article/news/nation-world/seoul-crowd-surge/507-c9a406d3-47c2-44a1-88c1-327cdb14bd20 Seoul, South Korea crowd surge: 146 dead, official says