A woman touches a portrait of a Halloween crowd crush victim at a mourning altar set up at Seoul Plaza in Seoul, South Korea, Nov. 1, 2022. (Xinhua/Wang Yiliang)
South Korean Prime Minister Han Duck-soo said insufficient institutional support and crowd management was in part behind the deadly massive Halloween stampede in Seoul's Itaewon district, a popular tourist attraction in South Korea.
SEOUL, Nov. 2 (Xinhua) -- The crowd crush that happened Saturday night in the Itaewon district of the South Korean capital Seoul during Halloween celebrations can be blamed in part on incomplete crowd management, according to South Korean Prime Minister Han Duck-soo on Tuesday.
"It seemed that one of the significant reasons (for the incident) was eventually crowd management, for which (South Korea) somewhat lacks sufficient institutional support and systematic efforts," Han told a press conference with foreign correspondents in Seoul.
Han said that even if more police officers were to be deployed to Itaewon, it would have had limitations in controlling the massive crowd given that the country had incomplete regulations on crowd management.
People lay flowers at a mourning altar for Halloween crowd crush victims set up at Seoul Plaza in Seoul, South Korea, Nov. 1, 2022. (Xinhua/Wang Yiliang)
At least 156 people were killed and 151 others injured in the country's deadliest disaster since a ferry sinking incident left 304 people, mostly high school students, dead in April 2014.
The incident was believed to have been caused by huge crowds surging into a narrow hilly alley and toppling over one another at the popular nightlife district in Seoul.
People holding flowers walk to a mourning altar for Halloween crowd crush victims set up at Seoul Plaza in Seoul, South Korea, Nov. 1, 2022. (Xinhua/Wang Yiliang)
Most of the victims were those in their late teens, 20s and 30s as over 100,000 people gathered in Itaewon for the country's biggest no-mask outdoor Halloween festivities since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.
The shortage of police officers to control the crowd, who got trapped and crushed on the overcrowded streets, was believed to have fueled the disastrous crowd crush.
According to the police, 137 police officers had been mobilized for the Saturday Halloween event.■
