Seoul Halloween stampede: Panicked emergency calls reveal crowd’s surge fears

An Australian survivor of the Halloween crowd crush in Seoul has told of how people filmed, sang and laughed while his friends were dying.

At least 154 people are believed to have died in the Itaewon stampede on Saturday, while 132 others are reported to have been injured, including 37 in serious condition, amid fears this number will rise in the coming days.

Those killed or hurt were mostly teenagers and people in their twenties, according to Choi Seong-beom, chief of Seoul‘s Yongsan fire department.

Emily Atkinson has more:

More photos have been released of people grieving and paying their respects following the Halloween stampede in Seoul on Saturday night.

As South Korea mourns, officials face tough questions as experts say the death should be seen as a “manmade disaster”.

The national government has insisted there was no way to predict the crowd would get out of control.

Experts disagree. Deploying so few police officers, they said, showed officials were poorly prepared despite knowing ahead of time that there would be a huge gathering following the easing of COVID-19 restrictions in recent months.

On top of assigning more personnel, police and officials in the Yongsan district, which governs Itaewon, should have pedestrianized some streets and taken other measures to ease the crowding in narrow lanes like the one where the deaths occurred, experts said.

Instead, the 137 officers in Itaewon were assigned to monitor crime, with a particular focus on narcotics use, meaning that for all practical purposes “no one was looking after pedestrian safety,” said Kong Ha-song, a disaster prevention professor at South Korea‘s Woosuk University.

The deaths should be seen as a “manmade disaster,” said Lee Changmoo, an urban planning professor at Seoul’s Hanyang University.

Authorities have come under similar criticism in national media and on social networks. The headline of an editorial in the Hankyoreh newspaper on Sunday described the tragedy as “all too avoidable.” The paper said its reporting showed that a pedestrian got knocked down by a crowd in Itaewon a day before Halloween festivities — although no one was hurt.

An Australian who survived the tragic crush in Seoul paid tribute to his friend who died on Saturday night.

In a now deleted TikTok video, Nathan Taverniti, spoke of what he called a “slow, agonising crush” that became the country’s worst disaster in years.

Grace Rached, 23, had been holidaying in the South Korean capital and would have turned 24 next week.

“I was there when she said she couldn’t breathe and I grabbed one of my friends’ hands,” Taverniti said, wiping away tears.

He went on to reject media reports which framed the crowd surge as a “stampede” which saw around 100,000 people gather in Itaewon for the country’s biggest Halloween celebration since the pandemic began.

“It was a slow, agonising crush. This crush was not caused by drunk people. It was lack of planning, police force and emergency services,” Taverniti said.

“And nobody was willing to help. I watched as people filmed and sang and laughed while my friends were dying, along with many other people.

“I was there trying to pull people out because there was not enough police officers and nobody was doing anything to make the crowd stop.”

He added: “We were yelling, we were saying ‘you have to go back, you have to turn around, people are dying’, but nobody was listening.”

An Australian survivor of the Halloween crowd crush in Seoul has told of how people filmed, sang and laughed while his friends were dying.

At least 154 people are believed to have died in the Itaewon stampede on Saturday, while 132 others are reported to have been injured, including 37 in serious condition, amid fears this number will rise in the coming days.

Those killed or hurt were mostly teenagers and people in their twenties, according to Choi Seong-beom, chief of Seoul‘s Yongsan fire department.

Among the 26 foreign nationals who died was film producer Grace Rached, 23, from Sydney, Australia, who has been described by her family as a “gorgeous angel” who lit up a room with her “infectious smile”.

Emily Atkinson reports:

Two American college students were among the 154 people killed in a crowd disaster during Halloween celebrations in the South Korean capital of Seoul on Saturday night.

South Korean president Yoon Suk Yeol declared a week-long period of national mourning on Sunday for those who lost their lives in the crush that resulted after as many as 100,000 revellers packed tightly into the Itaewon nightlife district.

Among the dead was Anna Gieske, 20, an American nursing student at the University of Kentucky who had been studying abroad in South Korea and recording her travels on Instagram.

South Korean actor Lee Ji-han was among the 154 people to die in the crowd crush in Itaewon, Seoul, on Saturday (29 October).

At least 132 other people are reported to be injured, including 37 in serious condition, with fears that the death toll could still rise.

An estimated 100,000 people had gathered in the city’s nightlife district for Halloween celebrations when the fatal crush occurred.

On Sunday (30 October), acting agencies 935 Entertainment and 9ato Entertainment confirmed that Lee had been killed in the disaster.

The King and Queen Consort sent a message of solidarity to the victims and community in Seoul following the tragic stampede which killed 154 people, with the death toll expected to rise.

On top of assigning more personnel, police and officials in the Yongsan district, which governs Itaewon, should have pedestrianised some streets and taken other measures to ease the crowding in narrow lanes like the one where the deaths occurred, experts have said.

Instead, the 137 officers in Itaewon were assigned to monitor crime, with a particular focus on narcotics use, meaning that for all practical purposes “no one was looking after pedestrian safety,” said Kong Ha-song, a disaster prevention professor at South Korea‘s Woosuk University.

The deaths should be seen as a “manmade disaster,” said Lee Changmoo, an urban planning professor at Seoul’s Hanyang University.

Authorities have come under similar criticism in national media and on social networks. The headline of an editorial in the Hankyoreh newspaper on Sunday described the tragedy as “all too avoidable.” The paper said its reporting showed that a pedestrian got knocked down by a crowd in Itaewon a day before Halloween festivities — although no one was hurt.

Harrowing scenes show emergency services moving bodies from the site of the stampede.