On October 31, 2022 local time, Seoul, South Korea, a woman mourns the victims on the street near the site of the stampede.
"The age of blooming like a flower... Heartache, may the soul rest in peace. At Exit 1 of Itaewon Station on the Seoul Subway, South Korea, handwritten notes and bottles of drinks and shochu are placed among chrysanthemums, mourning the loss of more than 150 lives in the alleys along the way.
Over the upcoming Halloween carnival weekend, young people flocking to Itaewon Alley enjoy the nightlife after the "full lifting of epidemic restrictions". As the crowds grew stronger, the narrow ramp spun out of control, and the cries of celebration turned into desperate cries for help. Until late at night, only the cry gradually drowned out by the sound of ambulances.
This is the deadliest public safety accident in South Korea since the sinking of the Sewol passenger ship in 2014. As of 6 a.m. on October 31, the Itaewon stampede had killed 154 people, seriously injured 33 people, and slightly injured 116. Among them, more than 20 foreign victims, including 4 Chinese citizens.
South Korea entered a period of national mourning, and President Yoon Seok-yue and his wife, Kim Kun-hee, went to the collective incense burning center in front of the main entrance of the Seoul Library in Seoul Plaza on October 31 to lay flowers and observe a moment of silence on the way without saying a word. At the joint government briefing on the same day, the reporter asked, "Does the government have guidelines for responding to gatherings without organizers?" "Are the police ready for crowd control?" Government and police spokespeople's answers were vague.
Why did the Itaewon tragedy happen? A question mark haunts the sad haze of Seoul.
Into the "Suffocating Alley"
"If it hadn't been for a tall boy pulling me to a high place, I would have been squeezed to death." Nasa, a Japanese university student studying in Seoul who narrowly escaped from Itaewon, recalled that dark moment to The Paper and said many times that "it felt like I was about to suffocate."
Two weeks ago, Naisa saw on social platforms that Itaewon was going to hold a Halloween celebration, because there were many classes on Halloween and friends had to work, so she agreed to "celebrate the festival" in advance the previous weekend. "I haven't experienced the lively atmosphere of that party for too long after the epidemic, and I heard that Itaewon is the number one popular place for Halloween, so I wanted to check it out." Naisa said.
Itaewon, Gangnam, and Hongdae in Seoul are popular places for young people to have fun, among which Itaewon in the eastern foothills of Namsan, Yongsan-gu, is the most exotic business district and a famous rich district north of the Han River, where many embassies and consulates are gathered, and it is close to the US military base in South Korea, where many foreigners live. Therefore, every Halloween and Christmas, Itaewon has a very strong festive atmosphere, attracting people who follow the trend.
According to South Korean police statistics, more than 100,000 people gathered in Itaewon on October 29. That night, Naisa and her friends came out of Itaewon's World Food Street and walked into an alley more than 3 meters wide, "At the beginning, we were pushed down by the flow of people, and at the same time some people walked up, and within a few steps, my friends and I were squeezed apart, the crowd slowly froze, and I heard someone shouting 'push together' behind, and a strong force behind me squeezed out the little slit that was originally left, and our bodies were tightly clamped, feeling like we were about to suffocate." ”
In the alley where the stampede occurred, with the back wall of the Hamilton Hotel on one side and bars and shops on the other, Naisa was trapped high on the alley slope, just near the stairs on one side, and a boy shouted "Hold on" and tried to pull the person on the side up the stairs. Naisa's hand reached outside and was dragged up the stairs, "I collapsed on the stairs and cried for a long time, I heard someone screaming below, and several boys around me shouted 'Someone fell in front, don't push!'" ’”
The lucky ones like Naisa who were lucky enough to be rescued were very few, and many more were squeezed in the middle of the ramp with nowhere to escape. According to Seoul police, 98 women, far more than men, were among the victims of the Itaewon stampede. Lee Song-kyu, president of the Korea Security Experts Association, said in an analysis of Korean media SBS that if one person weighs 50 kilograms, if there are 100 people, the trapped person bears at least 5 tons of weight, and petite and slender women are especially dangerous after being squeezed.
A number of witnesses and survivors told Korean media that someone deliberately pushed and shoved, and the people standing on the slope fell like dominoes, and the crowd fell layer by layer, stacking six or seven layers back and forth, and the people who were pressed below could not move. South Korean police said the part where the serious stampede occurred was a 5.7-meter-long section of the ramp with more than 300 people in an area of about 18 square meters. Medical experts point out that many people are unable to breathe due to the intense pressure on their chest and may fall into traumatic asphyxia.
Mehdi Museid, a researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany, told The Washington Post that according to the video, the Itaewon accident site averaged about 8 to 10 people per square meter, who were too tightly packed to breathe at such a density, and the oxygen in that area gradually thinned out causing someone to faint, and then died one after another.
Late sirens and dancing people
In Nasa's memory, it took a long time to hear the siren. "The rescue came too late and the people [who were trapped inside] couldn't wait a minute," she said. ”
According to information released by the South Korean police and fire department, at about 22:15 on October 29, the fire department received an alarm for the first time, saying that someone was trapped in an alley near Itaewon station and needed rescue. The Chosun Ilbo reported that although the nearest fire station and emergency team from Itaewon were only about 250 meters away from the scene of the incident, and an ambulance was dispatched two minutes after receiving the police, the rescue work was carried out almost an hour after receiving the police because of the congestion on the nearby roads that hindered the passage of ambulances.
Seoul has long suffered from traffic congestion because of the city's high population density. According to the National Bureau of Statistics of South Korea, Seoul had a population of about 9.6 million in 2021, with about 15,699 people living per square kilometer, which is higher than Tokyo. In addition, about 100,000 people gathered near Itaewon that night, and illegal parking on the roadside was also higher than usual, making it difficult for rescue vehicles to pass.
Video from the scene showed that after some trapped people were carried out one after another, firefighters, paramedical staff and some bystanders performed CPR on them on the side of the road. Lee Beom-suk, a doctor who volunteered at the scene to rescue the rescue, told South Korea's Yondato Television News (YTN) that the number of injured people increased sharply and quickly exceeded the capacity of first responders on the scene. None of the people he rescued survived, "they may have been trapped for too long, their faces have turned blue, their stomachs are bulging." "A cardiac arrest patient can suffer permanent brain damage in just 4 minutes without oxygen and may die immediately after 4 to 6 minutes.
Late at night on October 29, the streets around Itaewon Station were filled with fire trucks, ambulances, and police cars, but many bystanders stayed away. According to South Korea's "Daily Economic News", a video circulated on South Korean social networks, some citizens danced under the red warning lights of ambulances, next to those injured who were struggling between life and death. In addition, there are clubs that continue to play popular music. An hour after the accident, a large number of people were still nearby, and police shouted "get home as soon as possible" with megaphones, but many stood motionless onlookers and filmed.
Mr. Nam, a Seoul office worker in his 30s, witnessed the scene and told Korean media: "Halloween in Itaewon is not a ghost festival, but a demon's game board." ”
The tragedy of Itaewon took place simultaneously in real and virtual spaces, and videos, photos and some provocative words about the accident spread on social media platforms, exposing the faces of the victims without any mosaics and image cropping. According to a report by Korea Radio International on October 31, South Korean Prime Minister Han Deok-so said on the same day that some people are relaying disgusting remarks, false information and pictures of the accident scene through the Internet and social platforms, and must refrain from such behavior.
In addition, there are many speculations about the cause of the accident circulating on social networking platforms. In response, the Korea National Police Agency reported on October 30 that the police had dispatched 475 people to form an investigation headquarters, consisting of a scientific investigation team, a victim protection team, and a special investigation team, to investigate the Itaewon stampede.
To whom to hold accountable?
"Sorry for not protecting the children." After the accident, some netizens photographed a note pasted on a telephone pole near Itaewon Station with no signature on it. A professor surnamed Lee in Seoul National University's Department of Fire and Disaster told YTN: "This disaster could have been controlled or prevented, but no one was responsible and dealt with in the first place. ”
Some South Koreans blamed the disaster on negligence in crowd control, pointing the finger at the police. South Korean police stressed that 137 officers were deployed in Itaewon on the day of the incident, far more than the 37 to 90 deployed in various years from 2017 to 2019, Yonhap News Agency reported. But these police forces deal primarily with drug and sexual offenses, not on crowd and road control. Hong Ki-hyun, director of the Korean National Police Agency's Garrison Bureau, said that the police had expected a considerable number of people to gather in Itaewon and deploy a total of 200 police officers in the three days before and after Halloween, but did not expect the crowds to cause mass casualties.
When asked about police deployment at an October 30 briefing, South Korean Interior Minister Lee Sang-min said: "The size of this year's Halloween crowd is not a cause for concern compared to past years." "The police force was dispersed to other protest sites in the city. He also said it was not a problem that could be solved by deploying a police force. This statement has aroused public criticism from the South Korean people.
Kim Hyung-joon, an employee of a tobacco shop near Itaewon, said in an interview with Korean media: "It makes no sense that hundreds of police officers are used to protect a president, but only 200 police officers protect the lives of 100,000 people." ”
Whether or not people flow controls are in place will obviously lead to different outcomes. Itaewon held the Global Village Festival on October 15-16, which attracted millions of people according to the Hankyo Ilbo, and because it was a local government-sponsored event, road and crowd control measures were put in place to restrict vehicles from entering the area and guide the flow of people in one direction.
Hedi Museid analyzed the US media that unlike music festivals or religious pilgrimages, Itaewon activities are unorganized and unplanned, and it is difficult to predict how many people will be present, which street they will gather in, and which direction they will flow. "Itaewon may not have prevented this tragedy."
Itaewon's celebrations were spontaneous and did not have any organizers, but that doesn't mean there is no accountability. According to Korean media reports, many people began to criticize the Seoul Metropolitan Government and the Yongsan-gu Department for not giving early warning and responding to the accident. The Seoul Metropolitan Government admitted on the 30th that "the city government has not formulated a special countermeasure plan for Halloween activities." "Relevant meetings were held in Longshan District, but the safety management of crowd gatherings was not involved.
Although the grief and indignation of the South Korean people has not yet reached the presidential palace, the major accident is testing South Korean President Yoon Seok-yue's crisis response ability.
In the early hours of October 30, hours after the accident, Yoon Seok-yue held an "emergency inspection meeting" at the Yongsan presidential palace, instructing all relevant departments to do their best to provide rapid first aid and treatment to the injured, Yonhap News Agency reported. In the morning of the same day, he delivered a speech to the whole people, announcing that a national mourning period would enter from now on, and then went to the scene of the Itaewon accident to inspect the situation. On October 31, Yoon Seok-yue said that it was necessary to develop a safety management system for spontaneous mass gathering activities without organizers.
From instructing rescue to considering follow-up measures, Yoon Seok-yue intensively promoted crisis response measures within 2 days of the accident, but many people expressed dissatisfaction with him on social platforms, believing that he "did not show guilt for not being able to protect the people", and even some netizens thought that he should publicly apologize.
Wang Xiaoke, associate professor of the Institute of Northeast Asian Studies of Jilin University, told The Paper that although the South Korean government did not have such serious dereliction of duty as the "Sewol" in this accident, the follow-up accountability will have a continuous negative impact on the Yin Xiyue government and may become a new "Sewol" incident. This will also be an important step on the negative list of the Yoon Seok-yue government, and will become an important material for the Democratic Party to criticize the Yoon Seok-yue government in the future. However, South Korean society's antipathy towards it has not yet reached a peak, and various dissatisfaction is brewing, and if the economy does not pick up in the fourth quarter, or if there is another scandal, there may be a big explosion.
For Yoon Seok-yue's government, the crisis brought about by this disaster may be temporary, but the lesson is permanent. Martin Amos, a professor at Northumbria University in the United Kingdom, told The Washington Post that such incidents will continue to occur if appropriate measures are not taken to predict, detect and prevent dangerously high population densities.
(Source: The Paper)
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