At least 154 people have been killed and over 100 more injured in a crowd surge at a Halloween event in Itaewon, Seoul, South Korea.
The narrow alleyway became overwhelmed with people and it was just chaos thereafter. At least 26 foreign nationals, including two US citizens, are among the dead, and disaster management officials say that the event organizers are partially to blame.
“There is a responsibility on the part of the authorities to be monitoring crowd volume in real time, so they can sense the need to get people out,” she added. Some of the witnesses said that officials made no attempt to limit the number of people going into the crowd.
An interview with a first responder stated, “At 10:23 p.m. (9:24 a.m. ET) we received more than five reports that people fell, and they could either get hurt or die.”
The responder continued by saying that when the team began pulling people out of the crowd, a lot them were delirious and some unconscious.
While police are unsure as to what exactly caused the incident, it is apparent that the narrow streets could not accommodate the number of attendees, hence the tragic surge.
South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol has declared a period of national mourning
