The latest report from the South Korean Disaster and Safety Measures Headquarters has raised to 155 the number of people killed and 152 injured as a result of the human stampede that unfolded on Saturday night during a Halloween celebration in the Itaewon neighborhood of Seoul.
So far, a total of 55 men and 100 women have lost their lives as a result of this event, most were around 20 years old, although a dozen of the dead were over 40, as reported by the authorities and picked up by the Yonhap news agency.
A large concentration of people in a narrow alley just four meters wide very close to the Hamilton Hotel, with a slope that formed a downhill slope, generated that people began to fall on each other, so hundreds of people reported breathing difficulties and 45 died on the spot.
An eyewitness reported that people started to leave around 10:30 a.m. and ten minutes later «everyone suddenly started to fall and the people who remained below were crushed». Other people present described that people were piled up 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 news agency Yonhap, they carried out the search work until 3:00 am.
Firefighters reported the «difficulty in breathing» they experienced upon arrival in the area, when they proceeded to perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation maneuvers as soon as the bodies were moved to the main road. Local media have reported that friends and citizens have also made efforts to resuscitate those affected, given the large volume 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, from the United States, France, Vietnam, Uzbekistan, Norway, Kazakhstan, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Australia and Austria, as well as other unconfirmed nationalities.
The country has declared official mourning until Saturday in memory of the victims. South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol said he felt responsible as guarantor of the safety of its citizens and visited the altar in memory of those affected along with the first lady on Sunday.
«It is horrible, this tragedy should never have happened (…) As president, my responsibility is the safety of the lives of citizens, so my heart is heavy and I struggle to cope with this mourning,» he said.
In addition, the president assured that the most important thing at the time was to determine the causes of the accident in order to prevent similar incidents. «We will thoroughly investigate the case and make fundamental improvements so that similar accidents do not occur in the future,» he said in his speech reported by the Korean Times.
South Korean police admitted Monday that there were «mistakes» in taking measures that could have prevented the Halloween tragedy to a greater extent. South Korean police admitted on Monday that there were «mistakes» in taking measures that could have prevented the Halloween tragedy in Itaewon, a Seoul neighborhood where more than 150 people died when a stampede occurred due to the large crowds in one of the alleys in the area.
