A red tiara with devil ears, trampled hollowed-out pumpkins, a lost white sneaker. They are leftovers from the disastrous Halloween celebrations in Itaewon, a nightlife district in Seoul. The items are scattered down a narrow and steep alley where last night’s celebrations turned into a national drama.

At least 153 people were killed and 82 injured. The victims were suppressed in a crowd and trampled on. Most of the deaths occurred in this one particular alleyway, according to eyewitness testimonies as well as photos and videos of the disaster. Others were killed in the crowded streets around him. Teenagers and 20-somethings in particular died in last night’s chaos.

South Korean authorities are still investigating what exactly happened. According to Syan Schaap, director of the Event Safety Institute, a center of excellence for crowd management, it’s too early to say what went wrong. “But with a crowd like that, there doesn’t even have to be a reason like a fight or a fall. Oppression and crushing can already be caused by too many people compared to the space available to flow through.”

what happened last night

A day later, eyewitness testimonies make it possible to reconstruct how people got into trouble in the alley. In the run-up to Halloween, the omens were already visible. After two years of the pandemic, revelers were looking forward to heading to Itaewon, where Halloween is celebrated in a big way every year, without corona restrictions.

“Now that restrictions on clubs and other establishments have been lifted, the excitement is greater than ever,” the Yongsan District Police Station said in a news release on Thursday.

Authorities predicted around 100,000 people would flock to the celebrations.

8 p.m

Young people gathered in the neighborhood on Saturday evening. Dressed in costume, they went to Halloween parties at bars and nightclubs scattered across the entertainment district. The streets were already busy around eight o’clock, says a Dutch student who lives in Itaewon.

The rush increased in the hours that followed. Around 10 p.m., the situation became tense. Eyewitnesses describe getting stuck in the alley next to the Hamilton Hotel across from Itaewon subway station. There are several restaurants in this alley.

The crowds can be seen in this video:

In the beginning, despite the rush, there was still a festive mood, he writes The New York Times based on eyewitness testimony. “It wasn’t even possible to breathe, but people laughed and treated it as some kind of joke,” a tourist told the newspaper.

22:20

A little later the atmosphere changed. At around 10:20 p.m., panic broke out and screams and screams could be heard from the alley. Eyewitnesses say they saw people fall like dominoes. “A person next to me fell to the ground. As people pushed further and further behind me, more people fell and formed a sort of mountain,” a witness told Reuters.

Schaap recognizes the situation and speaks of traffic jams. “It’s a traffic jam. It keeps people from going any further. This traffic jam is increasing because people are coming from behind.” It’s very dangerous, he says. “We know from research that the pressure that such congestion puts on people’s chests can be as high as hundreds of pounds.”

If that happens, according to Schaap, there is hardly anything that can be done. “The rescuers can’t do much more than take care of the people they can still save. But then there’s no way to prevent it.”

aftermath

Footage from the evening shows lifeless bodies being carried out of the alley in the hours that follow, while other images show victims being revived on the street.

Several witnesses complain about the absence crowd control and police presence before chaos ensued. Seoul authorities say agents have also been deployed elsewhere in the city over political rallies.

Flowers, letters and plastic cups with the Korean drink soju stand at the Itaewon subway station:

According to Schaap, it is important to check whether the chaos in the entertainment district was foreseeable. “Because practically all of the mass catastrophes that were examined turned out to be predictable in retrospect,” he says. “If you could have predicted that everyone would want to be in the same place at the same time, you could have made a plan. For example, by spreading the celebrations all over the city.”

Investigations are therefore still needed to determine how the disaster could have happened. South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol has declared a week of national mourning.