During Halloween celebrations in the capital Seoul, a sizable crowd surging forward on a narrow street crushed at least 59 people, leaving 150 more hurt, according to South Korean officials.
Choi Seong-beom, chief of Seoul’s Yongsan fire department, said the death toll could grow as emergency workers were continuing to transport the injured to hospitals across Seoul following the stampede in the leisure district of Itaewon Saturday night (local time).
According to Choi, 13 of the deceased have been transported to hospitals, while the bodies of the remaining 46 are still lying in wait.
According to authorities, a massive crowd started rushing forward in a small lane outside the Hamilton Hotel, a popular gathering place for revellers in Seoul, and several people are thought to have been crushed to death.
Officials from the National Fire Agency and the Ministry of the Interior and Safety earlier said about 100 were injured and around 50 were being treated for cardiac arrest.
The injured were treated on the streets by more than 400 emergency personnel from all around the country, including all of Seoul’s personnel.
The precise number of emergency patients is still being calculated, according to a second statement from the National Fire Agency.
TV footage and photos from the scene showed ambulance vehicles lined up in streets amid a heavy police presence and emergency workers moving the injured in stretchers.
People laying in the streets were spotted receiving CPR from both emergency personnel and passersby.
In one area, paramedics could be seen assessing the condition of a dozen or more patients who were lifeless and covered in blue blankets.
Police, which were restricting traffic in nearby areas to speed up the transportation of the injured to hospitals across the city, also confirmed that dozens of people were being given CPR on Itaewon streets.
Emergency text messages were sent out by the Seoul Metropolitan Government requesting that locals hurry back home.
A stampede reportedly took place on the streets of Itaewon where a multitude of people had gathered for Halloween celebrations, according to a local police official. The officer said the incident’s specifics were still being investigated and that he wished to remain anonymous.
According to prior reports in the local media, a lot of people allegedly flocked to an Itaewon pub after hearing that a famous person who cannot be named had come there.
In a statement, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol urged officials to guarantee that individuals who were hurt received prompt medical attention and to assess the festival locations’ security. He also instructed the Health Ministry to swiftly deploy disaster medical assistance teams and secure beds in nearby hospital to treat the injured.
According to local media, over 100,000 individuals descended on Itaewon streets for the Halloween celebrations, which were the largest since the pandemic’s inception because to the recent relaxation of Covid-19 regulations.
South Korea’s Halloween crowd surge results in at least 59 fatalities.
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