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Crowd crush - Seoul


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120 dead and 100+ injured

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More than 100 people have died in a crush among huge Halloween crowds in a popular nightlife area of South Korea's capital, officials say.

The death toll jumped from 59 to 120 in the last hour, with local media reporting a further 100 injured.

Videos from Seoul's Itaewon district show body bags on the streets, emergency workers performing CPR, and rescuers trying to pull people trapped beneath others.

It is not known what caused the crush.

South Korea's President Yoon Suk-yeol has called an emergency meeting.

Meanwhile Choi Seong-beom, chief of Seoul's Yongsan fire department, told the AP news agency that the bodies of 13 dead had been sent to hospital while the other 46 remained on the streets.

Crowded area 'felt unsafe'

There were reportedly 100,000 revellers in the area celebrating the first outdoor no-mask Halloween event since the pandemic.

Social media messages posted earlier in the evening show some people remarking that the Itaewon area was so crowded that it felt unsafe.

The BBC's Hosu Lee, who visited the scene, said he saw "a lot of medial staff, a lot of ambulances, they were taking the bodies away one by one".

Mr Lee said there were thousands among the crowds, and a number of bodies covered in blue sheets, alongside a "ton of police".

"A lot of young people have gathered here tonight. A lot of people came to the party and club, wearing costumes and a lot of people I've seen distraught and sad and there are chaotic scenes," said Mr Lee.

Photos and videos show a number of both emergency responders and civilians attending to what appear to be unconscious people on the streets.

In one video numerous responders appear to be performing CPR on people in a narrow road in the district.

In another, emergency responders try to pull out people from what appears to be a pile of people's bodies following a crowd surge.

Another local journalist said that an emergency broadcast had been sent to every mobile phone in the Yongsan District urging citizens to return home as soon as possible due to "an emergency accident near Hamilton Hotel in Itaewon".

 

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4 minutes ago, Tony Ferrino said:

Fucking horrible stuff.

I accidentally saw some vids and people were only giving cpr and no mouth to mouth. Is that a cultural thing?

Don't think they teach mouth to mouth and also I saw that this was their first big event after Covid so probably a bit of that playing into it.

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17 minutes ago, 101 said:

Don't think they teach mouth to mouth and also I saw that this was their first big event after Covid so probably a bit of that playing into it.

The British Heart foundation ran an ad campaign featuring Vinny Jones that said don't bother with the mouth to mouth part and just do chest compressions. So it is a thing over here too.

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Fucking horrible stuff.
I accidentally saw some vids and people were only giving cpr and no mouth to mouth. Is that a cultural thing?
The British Heart foundation ran an ad campaign featuring Vinny Jones that said don't bother with the mouth to mouth part and just do chest compressions. So it is a thing over here too.

This. You also don't need to do that initial mad thump of the chest you tend to see in films and tele.
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Only real crush I’ve been in was at Gretna t Raydale Park after we beat Celtic in the cup. Put 700 Clyde fans into that tin thing across the touch line which only held about 400. Only had two guys holding a bucket to collect cash on entry. Those who remember will know the step walking onto the terrace as well, in February it was pitch black and howling rain.

Reports a lot of foreigners in amongst the dead. 
 

 

Edited by Karpaty Lviv
Crush, not crunch
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Some older Motherwell fans might remember a match at Brockville.  The lights went out and the game was cancelled and we all had to go down a narrow staircase, I think they were handing out free tickets for the replay and there was a crush on the staircase.  I don't think anyone was actually hurt but it was a bit scary and on an other day it could have been a whole different story.  Pretty lucky it turned up the way it did.

Obviously this event in Korea is a great tragedy but I was thinking about people dressing up as ghosts and zombies and then actually dying which is kind of weird and fucked up.

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I was living in Itaewon during the 2002 WC and the Hamilton Hotel was the focal point of the area, located on the main junction of main roads in the area. At the time the area was where a large percentage of foreigners in Seoul lived, and along with having a US army base in very close by, shops open 24 hours, bars and restaurants everywhere, the area was very much one of the 'nightlife' parts of the city (which had a quite few dotted about).  I revisited the area 5 years ago and not much had changed other than the place felt busier, as did Seoul in general.  That particular alleyway on the hill at the side of the hotel was always busy as was the slightly larger alleyway which ran parallel (W to E) behind the hotel to the main road, with lots of small alleys (like the one where the tragedy occurred) leading down to the main W to E road, creating a kind of lop-sided ladder a couple of hundred yards long. On really busy days you could imagine the possibility of overcrowding but never to the level which took so many lives.

Awful news.

 

Footnote: on a night out I'd taken a group out in the very same area and we ended up in a small bar with a Korean Beatles tribute band.  The band were excellent, performing a good number of the Lennon/McCartney repertoire in perfect English. I went up to Lennon or McCartney at the end of the night to thank them and tell them how much we enjoyed the night, etc, but the bloke just looked at me as though I was some sort of idiot.  He was, of course, fluent in Beatlese but couldn't speak a word of conversational English.  You had to be there, I guess. 

 

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What to do in a crush
 
Some of the crowd videos remind me of when you see clips from games pre-Hillsborough.
That's pretty useful, something as simple as knowing where the exits are could make a big difference.

I've been in a couple of "liquid" crowds like that at various festivals when I was younger. I didn't think much of it back then and just rode with it, but jeez it terrifies me now. In fact, considering the amount of crowds and mosh pits I've been around, it's a surprise that the only injury I've had is a bollard to the nuts coming out of Easter road.

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