South Korea opens investigation into deadly crowd crush in Seoul

South Korean authorities have opened an investigation into the deaths of more than 150 people in a crush in a nightlife district in Seoul on Saturday as experts said crowd controls could have reduced the surge that led to the disaster.

It remained unclear what led the huge Halloween party crowd to head into a narrow alley in the Itaewon area. Witnesses said people fell on each other “like dominoes”, and some victims were bleeding from their noses and mouths while being given CPR.

The South Korean prime minister, Han Duck-soo, has promised a thorough investigation and authorities said they were focused on reconstructing the chain of events leading up to the surge and were looking at whether anyone may have been responsible for triggering the crush.

On Monday afternoon, dozens of crime scene investigators and forensics officers descended on to the rubbish-strewn alleys. which were eerily quiet with many shops and cafes closed.

Quashing of Harvey Weinstein’s rape conviction draws prompt parallels with Donald Trump trial

---

Macron returns to the Sorbonne to warn of Europe’s mortality

---

US student protests: ‘You see a lot of hate on campus’

---

Togo president seeks to extend family rule into seventh decade

---

Earlier in the day people laid white chrysanthemums, drinks and candles at a small makeshift altar off an exit of the Itaewon subway station, a few steps away from the site of the crush. Another memorial for the victims was set up at Seoul city hall plaza, with others set up across the country.

Calls for accountability have grown in the press and online after witnesses reported seeing a relatively small number of police on the streets in relation to the size of the crowds.

As many as 100,000 people – mostly in their teens and 20s, many wearing Halloween costumes – had poured into Itaewon’s small, winding streets to reach the bars and clubs.

Itaewon is part of Yongsan, one of the Korean capital’s 25 districts. On October 28th, the district announced its plans for managing the Halloween celebrations in Itaewon, a gathering that attracts huge crowds but has no official organiser. The authority laid out measures including anti-Covid precautions, safety checks for bars and restaurants, rubbish management and anti-drug policies, but nothing on how to control the revellers who were expected to converge on the area.

Police said at a briefing on Monday they had deployed 137 officers to the event, pointing out that number was significantly higher than previous years. But local reports said most police deployed were focused on drug use and traffic control, rather than crowd control.

“This was a disaster that could have been controlled or prevented,” Lee Young-ju, a professor from the department of fire and disaster at the University of Seoul, told broadcaster YTN. “But this was not taken care of, with no one taking the responsibility in the first place.”

An editorial published in the Korea JoongAng Daily on Monday pointed to the lack of a central organiser as a contributing factor, but argued that “the disaster could have been avoided if the police and fire authorities had thoroughly prepared for possible scenarios in advance”.

Kong Ha-song, a disaster prevention professor at South Korea’s Woosuk University, said that for all practical purposes “no one was looking after pedestrian safety” on the night. He told the Associated Press that more police and government workers should have been called on to monitor potential bottleneck points and said the lack of a central organiser may have contributed to the tragedy.

Hong Ki-hyeon, a senior official with the national police agency, acknowledged the problem during a news conference on Monday, saying police did not have an established way to deal with such gatherings.

Lee Sang-min, the minister of the interior and safety, asked for patience. “It’s not appropriate to make hasty conclusions before the exact cause is determined – whether it was caused by a lack of police or whether there is something that we should fundamentally change for rallies and gatherings,” he said at a briefing.

Most shops and cafes nearby were closed on Monday, and police cordoned off the site of the incident, which was strewn with rubbish. Schools, kindergartens and companies around the country scrapped planned Halloween events. K-pop concerts and government briefings were also cancelled. – (Guardian/AP/AFP)