A massive stampede has left at least 146 people dead and hundreds more injured after a fatal crush amongst a 100,000-strong crowd on a narrow street during Halloween festivities in the South Korean capital Seoul.
An official from the National Fire Agency initially said around 100 people were injured during the deadly crowd surge on Saturday night in the Itaewon leisure district of Seoul.
It is believed that hundreds of thousands had gathered in Itaewon, Seoul to attend the city’s 2022 Halloween Festival, but a crush occurred shortly after 10pm local time.
Officials had previously confirmed that dozens of people went into cardiac arrest and the number of deaths is expected to rise. Hundreds more were injured, dozens of whom are in a critical condition in hospital.
Photos from the scene appear to show at least 25 bodies on the ground, concealed by yellow blankets. A separate line of bodies covered in blue blankets has also been photographed.
According to local emergency responders, many of the victims were women in their 20s.
Officials added it was believed that people were crushed to death after a large crowd began pushing forward in a narrow alley near Hamilton Hotel, a major party spot in Seoul.
Police said dozens of people are being given CPR on Itaewon streets while many others have been taken to nearby hospitals. One witness described the height of the crush as a ‘tomb’.
Photographs and videos on social media show horrific scenes of panic in the aftermath of the crush, and people’s desperate efforts to evade the tragedy.
One particularly distressing video showed dozens of people struggling to breathe and stay on their feet in the crowd as rescue workers attempted to extricate those most in need of medical assistance from the stampede.
One man was pictured climbing an almost flat wall high above the crowd to escape the panic beneath him.
Video on social media showed dozens of motionless figures lying on the ground in the aftermath of the incident while dozens more emergency workers and members of the public worked intensely around them.
Most of the figures were being given CPR and are thought to have had cardiac arrests.
The deadly incident occurred when the densely packed crowd surged into a narrow alleyway.
Social media footage showed hundreds of people packed in the sloped alley, crushed and immobile as emergency officials and police tried to pull them to free.
A Reuters witness said a make-shift morgue was set up in a building adjacent to the scene. About four dozen bodies were carried out later on wheeled stretchers and moved to a government facility to identify the victims, according to the witness.
Choi Seong-beom, chief of Seoul’s Yongsan fire department, said the death toll could rise as emergency workers were continuing to transport the injured to hospitals across Seoul following the stampede in the leisure district of Itaewon on Saturday night.
He added an unspecified number among the injured were in critical conditions following the stampede in the leisure district of Itaewon Saturday night.
The stampede took place around 10.20pm (1300 GMT) and according to Choi many of the victims were trampled to death.
‘The high number of casualties was the result of many being trampled during the Halloween event,’ Choi said, adding that the death toll could climb.
He said that many of those killed in the incident were young women in their 20s.
Hundreds of police officers had been deployed to the area in advance of Saturday night in anticipation of the large crowds, but they were reportedly struggling to keep control in the minutes before the tragedy unfolded.
As well as the 800-strong emergency worker response, 15 ‘disaster’ medical teams were also deployed from around South Korea to help in the aftermath of the crush.
But emergency services were initially vastly stretched and overwhelmed, resulting in dozens of passers-by and eyewitnesses trying to assist those injured and dying.
Reports from local media suggest Seoul has set up a roster for those worried about loved ones to find information.
In an interview with news channel YTN, Hwang Min-hyeok, a visitor to Itaewon, said emergency workers were initially overwhelmed, leaving pedestrians struggling to administer CPR to the injured lying on the streets. People wailed beside the bodies of their friends, he said.
Another survivor in his 20s said he avoided being trampled by managing to get into a bar whose door was open at the alley, Yonhap news agency reported. A woman in her 20s surnamed Park said she and others were standing along the side of the alley while others caught in the middle of the alley had no escape.
UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak paid his condolences to people in South Korea as he described the news coming out of the country as ‘horrific’.
He said: ‘Horrific news from Seoul tonight.
‘All our thoughts are with those currently responding and all South Koreans at this very distressing time.’
French President Emmanuel Macron joined Mr Sunak, tweeting: ‘Heartfelt thoughts with the residents of Seoul and for all Koreans this evening after the tragedy in Itaewon.
‘France is by your side.’
Meanwhile Tottenham Hotspur also put out a statement in light of the tragic incident. One of their star players, Son Heung-min, is originally from South Korea.
The Yonhap news agency in South Korea quoted an unidentified witness as saying he saw victims crushed to death.
‘People were layered on top of others like a tomb. Some were gradually losing their consciousness while some looked dead by that point,’ the witness said, according to Yonhap.
Earlier in the night it was reported that 74 of the dead have been sent to hospitals while the bodies of the remaining 46 who had been kept on the streets were being transported to a nearby gym so that workers could identify them.
Officials say people were crushed to death after a large crowd began pushing forward in a narrow alley near Hamilton Hotel, a major party spot in Seoul.
More than 800 emergency workers and police officers from around the nation, including all available personnel in Seoul, were deployed to the streets to treat the injured.
The National Fire Agency separately said in a statement that officials were still trying to determine the exact number of emergency patients.
TV footage and photos from the scene showed ambulance vehicles lined up in streets amid a heavy police presence and emergency workers moving the injured in stretchers.
Emergency workers and pedestrians were also seen performing CPR on people lying in the streets. Multiple people, apparently among those injured, were seen covered in yellow blankets.
More than 1,700 response personnel from across the country were deployed, including about 520 firefighters and 1,100 police officers and 70 government workers.
Every available worker in the capital was deployed to help.
This included 140 ambulances who have rushed to treat people at the scene after thousands headed into a narrow street in the capital’s party district.
A local police officer said he was also informed that a stampede occurred on Itaewon’s streets where a crowd of people gathered for Halloween festivities. The officer requested anonymity, saying the details of the incident were still under investigation.
Police officers have been pictured beginning their investigations into the incident, including gathering items of interest from the ground.
Some local media reports earlier said the crush happened after a large number of people rushed to an Itaewon bar after hearing an unidentified celebrity visited there.
Videos online appear to show people climbing the walls of the street in order to escape the crush, and being lowered a significant distant to neighbouring streets.
Horrific images and videos online show dozens of people lying on the ground with emergency workers and members of the public performing CPR. Some bodies lay on the ground after efforts to revive them had ceased.
Meanwhile images of lines of bodies on the ground covered by blue and yellow blankets have also emerged. Officials did not immediately release a death toll.
Among those being treated by emergency workers appeared to be some children.
South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol issued a statement calling for officials to ensure swift treatment for those injured and review the safety of the festivity sites.
Seoul’s mayor Oh Se-hoon is currently out of the country on a visit to Europe but has decided to return home following the news.
He is reportedly already on his way back to South Korea.
The city’s government have issued an emergency alert to all mobile phones telling people to go home as soon as they can to clear the area.
Local media are reporting that President Yeol chaired an emergency meeting and has ordered that treating and evacuating people from the area should be the top priorities.
They added that around 100,000 people flocked to Itaewon streets for the Halloween festivities, which were the biggest in years following the easing of Covid-19 restrictions in recent months.
‘You would see big crowds at Christmas and fireworks…but this was several ten-folds bigger than any of that,’ Park Jung-hoon, 21, told reporters at the scene.
Authorities are looking into the exact cause of the incident.
RELATED ARTICLES
- South Korea Issues Order to Assassinate North Korean Dictator Kim Jong-un
- US Includes Nuclear-Capable Assets In Large Military Drills Aimed at North Korea
- 'Democratic' South Korea set to adopt North Korea-style Mass Surveillance system
- North Korea says South Korea is their Number 1 Enemy
- South Korea boosts childbirth bonuses and housing subsidies to combat plummeting fertility rate
Loading ...
