At least 146 people were killed and 150 more were injured after being crushed by a large crowd pushing forward on a narrow street during Halloween festivities in the capital Seoul, South Korean officials said.
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.
He said earlier that 74 of the dead had been sent to hospitals while another 46 bodies that had been kept on the streets were being transported to a nearby gym so that workers could identify them.
Officials said it was believed that people were fatally crushed after a large crowd began pushing forward in a narrow alley near Hamilton Hotel, a major party spot in Seoul.
Local media said around 100,000 people flocked to Itaewon streets for the Halloween festivities, which were the biggest since the start of the pandemic following the easing of Covid-19 restrictions in recent months.
Video posted to social media from earlier in the evening show members of a packed crowd moving slowly down the street shoulder-to-shoulder in the same area where the stampede was alleged to have taken place.
Other videos of the packed crowd show people screaming and yelling, and another shows someone trying to escape the stampede by scaling a wall.
More than 800 emergency workers and police officers from around the nation, including all available personnel in Seoul, were deployed to the streets to treat the injured.
The Itaewon Fire Station official said in an earlier televised briefing that 21 people were confirmed to have suffered cardiac arrest.
The National Fire Agency separately said in a statement that officials were still trying to determine the exact number of emergency patients.
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. Emergency workers and pedestrians were also seen performing CPR on people lying in the streets.
Other videos posted to social media appear to show emergency medical personnel carrying victims down a littered street that had been cleared of crowds.
In one section, paramedics were seen checking that status of a dozen or more people who lay motionless under blue blankets. Photos posted to social media show the bodies lined up on the side of a street.
Police, who 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. The Seoul Metropolitan Government issued emergency text messages urging people in the area to swiftly return home.
A local police officer said he was also informed that a stampede occurred on Itaewon’s streets where a crowd of people gathered for Halloween festivities. The officer requested anonymity, saying the details of the incident were still under investigation.
Some local media reports earlier said the crush happened after a large number of people rushed to an Itaewon bar after hearing an unidentified celebrity visited there.
South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol ordered Prime Minister Han Duk-soo to oversee the accident management headquarters and speed up the process of identifying the victims, especially for the sake of the families waiting for their family members, according to Kim Eun-hye, senior secretary for public communications.
He also instructed the Health Ministry to swiftly deploy disaster medical assistance teams and secure beds in a nearby hospital to treat the injured.
A spokesperson for his office said earlier Sunday local time that the president was presiding over an emergency meeting at the presidential office’s crisis management center.
U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak tweeted his support for Seoul in the wake of the event.
“Horrific news from Seoul tonight,” the new prime minister wrote. “All our thoughts are with those currently responding and all South Koreans at this very distressing time.”
Credit: NBC News
