image source, Kim Hong-Ji/Reuters
Relatives gathered at a community center in Seoul seeking information about their loved ones.
Witnesses described scenes of utter panic and chaos as the narrow streets of Seoul’s popular Itaewon district were packed with people to the point that it was difficult to breathe and move.
“There were ten thousand people, the most I’ve ever seen… to the point where they crushed us on the pavementfreelance journalist Raphael Rashid told the BBC.
Thousands of teenagers and 20-somethings came in costume to Itaewon, a district in the heart of the capital known for its vibrant nightlife, excited to party after two years of covid restrictions in South Korea.
But video footage of what happened reflects the unfolding of the tragedy, which a witness compared to a war movie.
are registered more than 150 dead and more than 80 injured in the accident that happened on Saturday night.
Images that have been circulated show crowds so packed that people could barely move.
Some made it to safety, but there were desperate bystanders helping paramedics administer CPR to the injured and the long line of victims in body bags on the sidewalk.
The steeply sloping alley became a death trap as the crowd seemed to rush forward and people in front fell and were trampled by those behind.
“People in the Middle”
Videos posted on Twitter showed rescuers desperately pulling people out of the packed crowd.
“A short person like me couldn’t even breathe“, said the witness quoted by the AFP news agency.
image source, Kim Hong-ji/Reuters
Desperate relatives are waiting for news from their relatives and friends.
He said he survived because he was on the edge of the alley, but “the people in the middle suffered more.”
Raphael Rashid said “no one really understood what was going on” and some officers were “standing on their police vehicles desperately trying to tell people to leave the area as soon as possible”.
Medic Lee Beom-suk told local broadcaster YTN that he tried to revive some victims with CPR, but “the figure exploded soon aftersurpassing the number of first responders on the scene.”
– Many passers-by came to help us with CPR.
He also said that “the faces of many victims were pale.”
“I couldn’t get their pulse or breathing, and many of them had bloody noses.”
image source, Kim Hong-ji/Reuters
Park Jung-hoon, 21, told the Reuters news agency that the situation “completely out of control“.
And Moon Ju-young, also 21, noted that “there were too many people.”
“I know the police and rescuers are working hard, but I would say there was a lack of preparation.”
Itaewon resident Lee Su-mi, 53, told Reuters that “those young people who were called the ‘covid generation’ could finally celebrate Halloween as their first festival.”
“So no one could have predicted that the festival would turn into a disaster.”
“They died at the hands of my friends”
Fan Wang, BBC News, Singapore
Ana, a 24-year-old Spanish woman, was asked to help try to resuscitate the victims using CPR, even though she had never done it before.
She and her German friend Melissa (19) were in a bar next to where the stampede happened.
As they tried to leave around 11:00 pm local time (14:00 GMT), they saw ambulances and police officers running around asking people to move to make way for the dead and wounded to be removed.
“There were so many people who needed ordinary people for resuscitation. Then everyone started joining and helping. We had two friends who knew how to do resuscitation and came to help,” Ana told the BBC.
“Three minutes later or maybe more, they came back, looked very traumatized and crying because they tried to save five or six people, but they all died at the hands of my friends,” adds the Spaniard.
Then he went out to help the two girls. Not knowing how to perform CPR, he followed the instructions of others.
“They were telling me how to hold my head and open my mouth and stuff like that. I was trying to help, but they were both dead too. I have to say that all the people they brought in to do CPR, most of them are no longer breathingAndSo they couldn’t do anything. We couldn’t do anything, that was the main trauma,” says Ana.
“People were falling like dominoes”
BBC Thailand Service
Jessi Jassicah was in the bar on the corner of the alley where the tragedy happened.
He had just opened a bottle of champagne when he heard a scream and turned to see what was happening outside.
image source, Kim Hong-ji/Reuters
In the area where the tragedy happened, flowers and candles were laid in honor of the victims.
“People were already down,” he said in a video posted on Facebook, “and they were falling like dominoes.”
According to Jassica, people started struggling to get up and security guards tried to prevent them from entering the bar as they tried to escape the crowd.
“I was locked up for a while because security wouldn’t let me out. I was terrified when I saw people spitting blood and getting CPR,” she said.
He says that when he got out and went down the next alley, he was surprised to see that “tourists are still dancing, still taking pictures”.
“It was shocking because a lot of people hadn’t seen the news, they still didn’t know what was going on.”
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