137 People in a Crowd of 130,000! Reason for the Seoul Massacre Super-Light Security Stunned

“Don’t push!　Go back!”

“People will be crushed!”

The joyful atmosphere of Halloween that had enveloped the downtown area was suddenly transformed by the fear of death.

The catastrophe occurred in Itaewon, a popular spot for young people in Seoul, South Korea, just after 10 p.m. on October 29. Crowds poured into a narrow street 3.2 meters wide and 40 meters long near the subway station. More than 150 people, including two Japanese, lost their lives (as of October 31).

“The site seemed to be so overcrowded (more than 10 people to a square meter) that bodies floated to the surface. Moreover, it was a slope with a 10% incline and many steps, which made it easy for people to fall down. Despite the dangerous conditions, the crowds came pouring into the street, one after the other. People collapsed like waves collapsing on top of each other, and then people covered them from above, crushing many to death,” said a Korean newspaper reporter.

President Yun moved quickly to calculate.

President Yun Suk-yeol moved quickly. Before dawn on January 30, he entered the Crisis Management Center of the Presidential Office, where he expressed his top priority in dealing with the situation, saying, “A tragedy and a disaster that should not have happened has occurred.”

However, it seems that behind the move was the calculation that we don’t want to follow the example of past administrations. Korea Report editor-in-chief Shinichi Hen explains.

The Sewol disaster that occurred in April 2002 left more than 300 people dead or missing. The then President Park Geun-hye was out of communication for about seven hours after the accident, and the scene was in chaos. The delay in the initial response caused the damage, and the incident was heavily criticized. According to one theory, she was secretly meeting with a man close to her. The Sewol incident contributed to the resignation of the Park administration.