People sit on the street after being rescued, in Seoul, South Korea, on Oct 29, 2022. - Reuters
SEOUL (The Straits Times/Asia News Network): The crowd crush that killed over 150 people in Seoul’s clubbing district Itaewon is said to have been a “perfect storm”, with the area’s unique layout and unexpected human congestion converging to create one of South Korea’s worst tragedies.
Itaewon, which is home to many foreigners, draws tens of thousands of people clad in fancy costumes every October to celebrate Halloween, an ancient Celtic festival.
Officials and business owners expected a surge in turnout this year, as people can finally party outdoors without wearing masks now that Covid-19 restrictions have been lifted.
Itaewon regulars told The Straits Times that the clubbing district is always packed to the brim during Halloween, but no one anticipated large crowds of revellers lingering on the streets this time as entertainment outlets had tightened control on their maximum capacity to prevent overcrowding and avoid becoming a hotbed for Covid-19 infections.
“Owners were very careful about who they let in as they didn’t want their place to be packed, which resulted in long queues outside,” said Seoul-based Singaporean Dominic Phua, 31, a marketing director who has celebrated Halloween in Itaewon for the past six years.
The extra numbers created a bottleneck on a narrow downhill alley near Hamilton Hotel where the fatal crush happened.
Of the 153 who died, 97 were women. Observers said women bore the brunt of the crush as they were smaller, physically weaker and wearing high heels that would have made it difficult for them to maintain their balance on the slope.
Lauren Guardia from Switzerland, 35, who works at an IT company, attributed the crowd crush to Itaewon’s unique layout and overcrowding.
She described how there is only one main “party street” where people congregate, and that it is connected to a subway station located down a slope via a handful of narrow alleys. This makes it nearly impossible for big crowds to flow freely, she added.
“To put it simply, the layout and geography of the area make for a perfect storm where an accident can happen due to overcrowding,” said Guardia.
“The alley where the accident happened is barely wide enough for a car to drive through. Now imagine hundreds of people crammed shoulder to shoulder in there, attempting to push down the hill.
“It was already very bad in 2019 and I remember being caught in a shoulder-to-shoulder crowd at that time and was in a near panic thinking to myself ‘this is seriously dangerous, someone could end up dead’. I think in previous years we were just lucky that nothing like this happened. The elements were all always there.”
Juweon Kim, co-founder of Mexican-Korean restaurant-cum-bar Vatos Urban Tacos, also described the deadly crush as a “perfect storm” whereby one alley became over-congested.
He noted businesses in Itaewon had expected huge crowds and had prepared for them as they did in previous years. “I don’t think you can say they were underprepared but they could have been more proactive.”
Officials could also have shut down roads to allow people to walk from one side of the roads to the other side, which would “greatly alleviate pressure in the Hamilton Hotel alley”, he said.
He urged the local authorities to consider closing roads every weekend to allow visitors to Itaewon to walk freely on the roads instead of cramming into narrow alleys.
“It would allow the neighbourhood to thrive while providing a safer environment for the visitors,” he said, adding that car-free roads would allow faster access to rescue workers in the event of another incident.
“You don’t have to be an expert in urban development or crowd control to see this solution.”
Questions have also been raised about the lack of crowd control and safety measures, and if more police officers should have been deployed to Itaewon.
Reports surfaced that there were more police officers maintaining order at a nearby protest than in Itaewon.
However, Interior Minister Lee Sang-min insisted deploying more police officers to Itaewon could not have prevented the tragedy, as the crowd numbers were not different from previous years and did not “cause special concern”.
The turnout in 2022 was estimated to be 100,000 – similar to pre-Covid-19 years.
However, Professor Lee Young-ju from the University of Seoul’s department of fire and disaster pointed out a loophole – Halloween at Itaewon was not bound by safety measures imposed on government-organised events that would draw more than 1,000 people. Individual businesses were left to impose their own rules instead.
“This was a disaster that could have been controlled or prevented,” he was cited as saying in The Korea Herald newspaper.
“But this was not taken care of, with no one taking the responsibility in the first place.”
Guardia suggested setting up roadblocks for future Halloween events to restrict the number of participants or “requiring tickets or some kind of pass”.
“I really hope the authorities will learn from this experience and make it safe for everyone in the future,” she said.
“I hope no one else has to ever be hurt or killed just because they wanted to enjoy a holiday.”
