On the evening of Saturday, October 29, 2022, about 100,000 people mostly in their teens and 20s gathered in the popular nightlife district in central Seoul, Itaewon, to enjoy Halloween festivities. With the revival of parties and clubbing for the first time in three years following COVID-19 restrictions, there were significantly more partygoers than anticipated. Considering that the district is composed of narrow alleyways with all clubs and bars situated in the same area, the preceding concern of the streets being overpopulated has turned into an irreversible and catastrophic tragedy. It wasn’t long until the excitement on people’s faces transformed into a cry for life- just after 10p.m, the people squeezing into a narrow, sloping alleyway from both ends in Itaewon erupted into a chaos of people falling, knocking others down, piling onto one another, and trapping them. Footage of the night shows some people trying to climb the sides of the buildings to escape, and witnesses reported crowds surging in different directions. 158 people stuck in the overcrowded alleyway of Itaewon lost their lives in a crowd crush.
Upon investigating the incident, it has been revealed that for nearly four hours partygoers pleaded with police to divert the crowds that were packing the street and pushing people into a tight and sloping space. The Washington Post has interviewed dozens of witnesses and determined that the alley became dangerously crowded as early as 6:28 p.m. Additionally, the first of at least 13 emergency calls came in minutes later to warn the authorities of the escalating chaos. They reported “bottleneck,” “out-of-control” crowds, and fear of being “squashed to death,” though some provided preventive measures to manage the overcrowding. Those calls were dismissed, and it wasn’t until 10:39 p.m. that the emergency personnel arrived at the scene. A delay and lack of police available for the incident at the time allowed the foot traffic to continue into the area and increased fatalities. The National Police Agency data shows that the law enforcement agencies only dispatched 137 police personnel on October 29 for crime prevention, such as drug use, sexual violence, and petty crimes; only 32 officers were available to handle on-site emergencies.
The same day, 4,700 police officers, highly trained in crowd control, were stationed along the road from downtown Seoul to the president’s office, less than a mile from Itaewon. They were assigned by the Yoon administration to monitor anti-government protesters, yet none of these officers were sent to Itaewon afterward to attend to the crowd jamming. As the incident becomes political, politicians from the currently ruling Conservative party tend to label the tragedy as a “stampede accident,” subtly blaming the crowd and Halloween partygoers.
However, experts claim that the tragedy was completely preventable. The authorities of South Korea have known for years that large crowds gather in Itaewon during the Halloween weekend. It has also been discovered by the police reports that in October, officials in the Yongsan district office and police and fire departments discussed the upcoming Halloween festivities in the area yet neglected to make any feasible and preventative plans for crowd control. According to G Keith Still, a crowd safety expert, crowd safety isn’t complicated. A management plan entails knowing the crowd limits, routes used, area and crowd density, and monitoring the movement. Still insists that crowd crushes are “preventable, predictable, and avoidable.” As a precedent, on Halloween weekend 2021, revelers in Itaewon were assertively directed by uniformed police officers to ensure that crowds traveled in an orderly and distanced way as a part of COVID-19 prevention efforts. No such prevention efforts were implemented this past fall despite it being the first Halloween restriction-free celebration since the outbreak of the pandemic.
Police agencies in South Korea receive robust training for crowd control and monitoring. Given the country’s history of frequent demonstrations, the Itaewon crowd crush cannot solely be concluded as an “accident.”. In fact, people were crushed by others who simply reacted to the extreme density that was inescapable. Indeed, numerous factors led to the chaos, yet the responsibilities of the authorities’ poor planning, design, control, policing, and management cannot be ignored. They must be held accountable.
The incident conspicuously portrayed the country’s top-down culture of law enforcement. Lower-level officials not only lack competence in situations where manuals for preventing such incidents do not exist but also have no incentive to prepare for them when laws or regulations do not require them. As such, it is reasonable to assume that the law enforcement agencies had more motives to control the anti-government protesters held close to the president’s office than the young partygoers stuck in the narrow alleyway of Itaewon on Halloween night.
What enraged the bereaved families and survivors of the incident more was the countermeasures, and the disrespectful response politicians have made following the criticisms of government mismanagement. The families of the victims are seeking not only legal but also ethical accountability from the administration. So far, 23 officials face jail time under “death by professional negligence.” Moreover, two police officers were arrested in November on suspicion of ordering the deletion of an internal report that spoke of safety concerns during the Halloween period. The problem arises from the fact that those indicted are mainly police officers and local councils operating in the district where the crush took place. The high-ranking figures in South Korea have enjoyed impunity, calling it “cutting off the lizard’s tail to spare the head.” The investigators only went after “tails,” punishing mostly low-and mid-ranking police, fire department, and other government officials in the Yongsan district while protecting the home minister and national police chief. The victims’ families claimed in a joint statement and demanded that the home minister and the national police chief step down and take responsibility for the disaster, which the officials have refused.
“Genuine healing can only begin after there has been an ascertainment of the truth and those who are responsible have been punished.” Two months after the incident, a teenage survivor of the deadly crowd crush was found dead in an apparent suicide. He had lost two friends in the disaster and received medical treatment for injuries he sustained. He returned to school a week after the incident but suffered from psychological shock and began attending regular therapy sessions. In particular, the teenager suffered from malicious comments online. In an interview with MBC, the victim’s mother said “around mid-November, he talked to me crying. He was very angry at the online comments that insulted his dead friends like “didn’t they die trying to see a celebrity?” As emphasized in the interview, insults and ignorance towards the victims and survivors were extremely prevalent in online communities with people stating that the victims died partying; trying to see a celebrity that visited the district that night, and blaming the victims for their gatherings.
Ironically these opinions have been backed by the current ruling party, who sought to avoid their responsibilities by allowing the blame to move onto the victims. For instance, the Conservative representative in the Changwon city council made a harsh comment to the bereaved families saying, “they didn’t die saving the country, did they?” implying that their deaths are not worth attention and mourning from the entire nation. The cruel words by lawmakers and the insulting online comments aimed at the victims’ families are not only daunting to the survivors but are also interfering with their return to daily life. Yi Jae-Geun, Secretary-General of cooperation in the People’s Solidarity for Participatory Democracy and active member of a committee of citizens pursuing the truth of the Itaewon crowd crush, stated, “the government and the National Assembly should more actively express their support and help. But now that the central headquarters has been disbanded, it seems like they are actually forcing the responsibility onto the survivors.”
On December 2, roughly a month after the crowd crush, the government disbanded the Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasure Headquarters, the state agency that oversees disaster relief. The agency was disbanded at a time when the psychological treatment and care of the bereaved families and survivors were more important than ever before. The disbandment once again left damaging impacts on the survivors and the victims’ families. It was seen as an attempt by the government to hastily cover up and move on from the incident, allowing people to forget the incident and dismiss it as insignificant. Professor Kim Hyun-soo said, “the bereaved families and survivors need a space where they can gather, cry and talk together.” He advised the government to provide a space for mourning, including the memorial center, for an extended period of time and to establish a system for the careful treatment of concerned families.
What exactly does “responsibility” mean in this case? Regardless of how thorough the investigation is, it cannot perfectly soothe the hearts of the victims. However, this does not mean families don’t have a right to faithful investigation and to the support of the government, which is crucial to recovery. Instead of seeking different targets to spare the blame, the current administration must investigate the incident with transparency and properly hold those who were responsible for the disaster accountable.
Edited by Anyssa Boyer
Hailey Lee is in her second year at McGill University, currently pursuing a degree in Political Science with a minor in Economics and Communication Studies. As this year’s Staff Writer for Catalyst, Hailey desires to spread awareness and inform the audience on political and human rights issues particularly occurring in the Asia Pacific.