There’s a stillness in Itaewon the place the horror unfolded, the location of a stampede in Seoul that killed a minimum of 153 folks.
It’s 24 hours since a Halloween celebration turned a nationwide tragedy.
People have returned to the scene. Some appear like they’ve hardly left. Everyone appears totally bewildered.
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Some stare, some weep and a few pray.
There are wine bottles left alongside flowers, tributes to the lifeless that trace at what started as an evening of celebration.
Among those that’ve gathered to pay their respects to the lifeless is Choel Jang.
“It’s just like a joke,” he tells me as he wipes tears from his eyes.
“I do not assume at such a competition there could be some younger folks similar to me died.
“So I was really sad… I saw somebody lying on the road, and they were wearing the costume. I was so sorry for them.”
Choel says there have been many younger girls, too small to combat by way of the throngs of individuals.
What was the realm like?
Just a couple of steps away, you’ll be able to see the location of the crush – a slender alley on an incline.
It’s laborious to imagine that 100,000 folks have been partying round this small space, and really simple to think about how the state of affairs spiralled.
You can spot remnants of the panic in every single place – discarded bottles and Halloween costumes littering the road.
Eyewitnesses describe seeing folks topple like dominoes, partygoers struggling to flee, emergency companies struggling to achieve them.
It was the primary time folks had been capable of have a good time unmasked for 3 years after the COVID lockdown.
But what was meant to be a second of freedom, turned a terrifying tragedy.
‘This was subsequent stage’
Janelle Story filmed the second issues turned on her telephone.
She was out with buddies and felt overwhelmed by the extent of the crowds.
“This was next level. Shoulder to shoulder. Front to back. Just shimmying along on those streets. No control about where you’re going to move at times,” she tells me.
Fortunately, she was capable of shelter in a bar, however it was laborious to unpick what was occurring.
She describes chaotic scenes, with some folks some nonetheless consuming and singing, unaware of our bodies piling up, rescue employees frantically performing CPR – many in useless.
Janelle would not assume there have been sufficient police to stem the stream of individuals.
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“The city knows people come to Itaewon for Halloween. They know. They had been reporting about it earlier in the week, saying Itaewon had been bracing for the Halloween events this weekend. 100,000 people. They knew. So where was the crowd control?”
But South Korea’s authorities has stated “a considerable number of police and security forces were deployed”.
The president has pledged to hold out a full investigation. But for now, the nation is submerged in grief.
Source: information.sky.com”