The South Korean police admitted on Monday that there were “mistakes” when taking measures that could prevent the tragedy to a greater extent.
The latest report from the South Korean Disaster and Security Measures Headquarters has raised the number of deaths to 155 and the number of injured to 152 as a result of the human stampede which took place this Saturday night during a Halloween celebration in the Itaewon neighborhood in Seoul.
Until now, a total of 55 men and 100 women have lost their lives as a result of this eventmost were around 20 years old, although a dozen dead were over 40, according to what the authorities have reported and the Yonhap news agency has collected.
A large concentration of people in a narrow alley of just four meters wide very close to the Hamilton Hotel, with a slope that formed a downward slope, caused people to begin to fall on each other, for which hundreds of people reported breathing difficulties and 45 died on the spot.
An eyewitness reported that people began to leave around 10:30 a.m. and ten minutes later. “everyone started falling all of a sudden and the people who were left below were crushed”. Others present described people being stacked in “layers” of up to five and six levels.
At least 143 emergency vehicles, including ambulances and fire trucks, were dispatched to the scene along with 848 professional rescuers. According to the Korean agency Yonhap, these troops carried out the search work until 3:00 a.m.
Fire crews moved the “shortness of breath” that they have experienced upon their arrival in the area, when they have proceeded to practice cardiopulmonary resuscitation maneuvers as soon as they moved the bodies to the main road. Local media have reported that friends and citizens have also made efforts to revive those affected, given the large number of victims.
The international community has turned to share messages of solidarity with the South Korean people for this tragedy, in which 26 foreigners have died, natives of the United States, France, Vietnam, Uzbekistan, Norway, Kazakhstan, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Australia and Austria. , in addition to other unconfirmed nationalities.
The country has decreed official mourning until Saturday, in memory of the victims. South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol said he felt responsible as a guarantor of the safety of his citizens and visited the altar in memory of those affected next to the first lady this Sunday.
“It’s horrible, this tragedy should never have happened. (…) As president, my responsibility is the safety of citizens’ lives, so my heart weighs heavily and I fight to face this duel,” he said. .
In addition, the president assured that the most important thing at that time was to determine the causes of the accident in order to prevent similar incidents. “We are going to thoroughly investigate the case and make fundamental improvements so that similar accidents do not take place in the future,” he said in his speech reported by the Korean Times.
The South Korean police admitted on Monday that there were “mistakes” when taking measures that could further prevent the Halloween tragedy. The South Korean police admitted on Monday that there were “mistakes” in taking measures that could further prevent the Itaewon Halloween tragedya neighborhood in Seoul in which more than 150 people died when a stampede was registered due to the great agglomeration registered in one of the alleys in the area.
South Korea to review security law
The ruling People’s Power Party (PPP) affirmed this Monday that to seek review of South Korea’s security and disaster management law in the wake of the tragedy in Seoul during the Halloween celebrations that has claimed the lives of more than 150 people.
Sung’s words come a day after South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol asked to devise a system to ensure crowd control at events that do not have an organization or entity behind.
Halloween is not an act organized by a specific body, such as a festival, a concert, a sporting event or a demonstration, and therefore the law in South Korea does not make it mandatory to establish a plan of security measures or establish protocols between the competent governments and the security forces.