South Korean authorities: Halloween gatherings were unregulated

• Families frantically called morgues and hospitals to find missing loved ones on Sunday.
• Thousands of revelers stood shoulder-to-shoulder in a roadway less than 4 meters wide.
• They had no instructions to handle the enormous throngs who assembled for Halloween festivities.

As families around the world mourn the 156 dead of Saturday night’s mob crush, South Korean authorities revealed Monday they had no instructions to handle the enormous throngs who assembled for Halloween festivities in Seoul.

In the tight neon-lit lanes of Itaewon, thousands of revellers stood shoulder-to-shoulder in a roadway less than 4 meters wide, unable to move or breathe.

Families frantically called morgues and hospitals and gathered at information centers to find missing loved ones on Sunday.

With all dead identified, panic has turned to national mourning as the country deals with one of its worst calamities, while parents abroad make preparations for their deceased children.

Monday saw official memorial altars in central Seoul, with photographs showing people paying their condolences. Many cried and held white flowers, while others bowed down to the altar.

President Yoon Suk Yeol, his wife Kim Keon-hee, and key officials like the prime minister and Seoul mayor mourned.

A week-long nationwide mourning closed many stores. Central Seoul was almost empty, a rare sight in the city of 10 million.

A handmade monument outside a subway station in Itaewon near the lane where the crush occurred was also visited. Flowers, handwritten notes, soju bottles, and paper cups with refreshments decorate the station entrance.

A civic organization of families of the 2014 Sewol Ferry disaster, which killed 304 people, largely youths on a school vacation, attended the funeral.

One group member told reporters at the memorial, “As one who had undergone the same grief, my heart is ripped and I’m made speechless.” The families were grieved to see “a big calamity like this repeated.”

Down the street, security guarded the alley entrance as forensic teams in white protective suits searched the trash-strewn area.

The government’s response and crowd management before the disaster have raised questions amid the sadness.

After being “crushed” by revelers, 22-year-old French exchange student Anne-Lou Chevalier told CNN she passed out in the mob. I couldn’t breathe because we were so close to other people. “I fainted,” Chevalier said.

Eyewitnesses and survivors reported seeing few police personnel before the situation escalated.

On Sunday, the minister of the interior and safety stated a “regular” amount of security people had been sent to Itaewon because the throng did not seem exceptionally large, but a “significant number” had been sent to another section of Seoul in reaction to predicted protests.

On Monday, authorities said they had sent 137 employees to Itaewon that night, up from 30 to 70 in prior years before the outbreak.

Oh Seung-jin, director of the violent crime investigation division at the National Police Agency, stated, “For this year’s Halloween celebration, because it was believed that many people would assemble in Itaewon, I hear that it was prepared by putting in more police force than past years.

“Currently there is no special preparedness handbook for such a circumstance where there is no organizer and a gathering of a crowd is expected,” he said. Police were there to prevent crime and “other illicit acts,” not crowd control.

Kim Seong-ho, director of the disaster and safety management section at the Ministry of the Interior and Safety, said they had no “rules or a manual” for such a “unique event.”

Authorities are assisting abroad families and embassies with funeral preparations. As the week progresses, more names and faces of those who killed will be revealed as the nation seeks answers to how such a calamity could have occurred in an area known to be busy on Halloween, with festivities weeks in advance.

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