Police stand guard to restrict access to the alley where a Halloween stampede took place in the neighbourhood of Itaewon in Seoul on October 30, 2022. Photo: ANTHONY WALLACE / AFP
South Korea's President Yoon Suk-yeol declared a period of national mourning after a Halloween crush killed some 153 people in a packed nightlife area in Seoul.
Most of the victims are believed to be in their teens and 20s. Officials say the death toll could still rise, but YTN was reporting it was at 153 people.
Those killed in Saturday night's disaster included at least 22 foreign nationals, including people from China, Iran, Russia, the United States, Australia, Uzbekistan, Vietnam, Kazakhstan, Austria, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Norway, authorities said.
Around 2900 missing persons reports have been filed in connection with Saturday night's crush, the Hannam-dong Community Service Center has told the BBC.
Yoon expressed condolences to the victims and wishes for a speedy recovery to the injured.
"This is truly tragic," he said in a statement. "A tragedy and disaster that should not have happened took place in the heart of Seoul last night."
A relative of missing persons following the Itaewon Halloween stampede reacts as she waits for updates at the Hannam-dong Community Center in Seoul on October 30, 2022. Photo: JUNG YEON-JE / AFP
A huge crowd celebrating in the popular Itaewon district surged into an alley on Saturday night, emergency officials said, adding the death toll could rise.
A further 76 people were injured in the melee, Choi Sung-beom, head of the Yongsan Fire Station, said in a briefing at the scene.
Nineteen of the injured were in serious condition and receiving emergency treatment, the officials said.
Eyewitnesses have described a scramble to escape a suffocating crowd, as people piled on top of one another. Paramedics, quickly overwhelmed by the number of victims, asked passers-by to help administer first aid.
Others described crowds in the area becoming increasingly chaotic over the evening.
'People fell like dominoes'
Jessi Jassicah was at a pub at the corner of the alley where the crush happened on Saturday night.
She says she had just opened a bottle of champagne, when she heard a scream and turned around to look.
People had already fallen and they fell like dominoes, falling flat," she said, describing what she saw in a video she posted on Facebook.
She says people then started scrambling to stand up and security tried to stop them from entering the pub as they attempted to escape the crush.
"I was locked in for a while because the security didn't allow me out. I was terrified when I saw people spitting blood and having CPR performed on them," she said.
She says when she managed to get out and walked to the next alley, she was shocked to find that "tourists were still dancing, they were still taking pictures".
"It was shocking because a lot of people didn't see the news, they still didn't know what was going on."
A doctor who administered first aid to victims has described the desperate struggle to save lives. Lee Beom-suk spoke to local broadcaster YTN, quoted by AFP news agency.
"When I first attempted CPR there were two victims lying on the pavement. But the number exploded soon after, outnumbering first responders at the scene," he said. "Many bystanders came to help us with CPR."
"It's hard to put in words to describe. So many victims' faces were pale. I could not catch their pulse or breath and many of them had a bloody nose."
"A number of people fell during a Halloween festival, and we have a large number of casualties," Choi Seong-beom, head of the Yongsan Fire Station, said in a briefing at the scene.
People comfort each other after a stampede at a packed Halloween event in central Seoul, early on October 30, 2022. Photo: ANTHONY WALLACE / AFP
'The government is supposed to protect people'
Auckland University Korean Studies Lecturer Chang-zoo Song said he was shocked to hear the news this morning, and that Seoul is still in chaos.
He said he's been told that victims have been taken to various hospitals around the city, and most parents of the dead will not yet know the worst.
"There are many families who have not figured out if their children didn't come home.
"Some family members were moving from one hospital to another hospital, to figure out if their children were there."
Song said the incident will likely be politicised and citizens could blame the government.
"The government is supposed to protect people, particularly in Confucian culture, that kind of expectation is relatively high.
"In the past when government fails, like during the famine and so on, there was big political turmoil."
Song said many streets in Seoul are quite narrow and present a risk for large crowds.
Moon Ju-young, 21, said there were clear signs of trouble in the alleys before the incident. "It was at least more than 10 times crowded than usual," he told Reuters.
Photo: AFP
Social media footage showed hundreds of people packed in the narrow, sloped alley crushed and immobile as emergency officials and police tried to pull them to free.
Choi, the Yongsan district fire chief, said all the deaths were likely from the crush in the single narrow alley.
Fire officials and witnesses said people continued to pour into the alley that was already packed wall-to-wall, when those at the top of the sloped street fell, sending people below them toppling over others.
One woman said her daughter, pulled from the crush of people, survived after being trapped for more than an hour.
US President Joe Biden joined world leaders who sent a message of support to South Korea over the Seoul Halloween tragedy.
Biden and his wife Jill, the First Lady, sent their "deepest condolences to the families who lost loved ones".
World's worst stampedes
Here are details of some of the worst stampedes over the last three decades:
April 1989: Ninety-six people are killed and at least 200 injured in Britain's worst sports disaster after a crowd surge crushed fans against barriers at the English F.A. Cup semi-final match between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest at Hillsborough stadium in Sheffield.
July 1990: Inside Saudi Arabia's al-Muaissem tunnel near the Muslim holy city of Mecca, 1426 pilgrims are crushed to death during Eid al-Adha, Islam's most important feast, at the end of the annual haj pilgrimage.
May 2001: In Ghana, at least 126 people are killed in a stampede at Accra's main soccer stadium when police fire tear gas at rioting fans in one of Africa's worst soccer disasters.
Aug 2005: At least 1005 people die in Iraq when Shi'ites stampede off a bridge over the Tigris river in Baghdad, panicked by rumours of a suicide bomber in the crowd.
Jan 2006: Three hundred and sixty-two Muslim pilgrims are crushed to death at the eastern entrance of the Jamarat Bridge when pilgrims jostle to perform the haj stoning ritual.
Jan 2013: More than 230 people die after a fire breaks out at a nightclub in the southern Brazilian college town of Santa Maria, and a stampede crushes some of the victims and keeps others from fleeing the fumes and flames.
April 2021: At least 44 people are crushed to death at an overcrowded religious bonfire festival in Israel in what medics said was a stampede.
Nov 2021: At least nine people are killed and scores injured in a crush at the opening night of rapper Travis Scott's Astroworld music festival in Houston, Texas, triggered by a surge of fans pushing toward the stage.
Oct 2022: A stampede at a soccer stadium in Indonesia kills at least 125 people.
- Reuters/BBC w/RNZ