Witnesses Say People Were Pushed Down Narrow Itaewon Alley By Partygoers Causing Seoul Halloween Disaster
This article correlates with other reports I have read on social media that people at the top of the narrow alleyway adjacent to the Hamilton Hotel started pushing people down. This alleyway slopes uphill this caused a domino effect of people falling downhill on top of those below them:
Witnesses and survivors on Sunday said an overnight stampede that killed at least 151 people occurred after a massive group of people celebrating Halloween surged into a narrow downhill alley and were instantly pushed down by others.
The deadliest stampede in South Korea’s history happened Saturday night in the alley near Hamilton Hotel in the famous nightlife district of Itaewon after tens of thousands of people visited the area for Halloween.
A total of 151 people, including 19 foreigners, have been killed and 82 others injured, fire authorities said, adding the death toll could rise further.
“People kept pushing down into a downhill club alley, resulting in other people screaming and falling down like dominos,” an unidentified witness wrote on Twitter. “I thought I would be crushed to death too as people kept pushing without realizing there were people falling down at the start of the stampede.”
A woman her 20s said the accident occurred after a massive crowd of people were pushed back and forth for some time, which then led her friend to be pinned down under the crowd.
Another female survivor in her 20s, surnamed Park, said the stampede erupted as people flocked into the small street in a short period of time.
“A short person like me could not even breathe,” Park said. “(I) could survive as I was located on the sideline of the alley. It looks like people in the middle suffered the most.”
Other survivors, meanwhile, blamed the owners of bars and clubs nearby, who allegedly blocked people from escaping from the overcrowded alley.
“It looks like the casualties were more severe as people attempted to escape to nearby stores but were kicked out back to the street because business hours were over,” said the survivor who asked not to be named.
Yonhap
That is pretty horrible that business owners would not allow people to exit the alleyway through their businesses thus further contributing to this disaster. It will be interesting to see if they face any charges of liability.
“It looks like the casualties were more severe as people attempted to escape to nearby stores but were kicked out back to the street because business hours were over,” said the survivor who asked not to be named.”
Escape to nearby stores: this is an alley, there are only back doors, the doors open outward
Kicked out: show me how to “kick out” someone into that crowd… if you can kick them out, they don’t need to be in your store. QED
While this is a terrible situation, it requires a bit of self-honesty… that is in very short supply these days.
Already there are rumblings to blame business owners for this in the police community. And this unnamed source sounds like something a “reporter” would make up to help push this narrative.
So if business owners are not to blame, who is to blame? Is anybody really to blame?
If blame just has to be assigned, it belongs to people who honestly thought it was a good idea to get into a crowd of that size… that is a Darwin Award: Group Edition waiting to happen.
It just doesn’t happen in Korea too often because Koreans are more civilized than Muslims, Hindus, and soccer fans.
After 2 years of needless lockdown, many people though the fun would be in Itaewon.
But fun is a bell curve.
At one end, you have an empty Itaewon on a Sunday night where depression is your biggest danger.
In the middle you have fun.
At the other end, you have a crowd so thick you can’t sit down, can’t get to the bar, can’t get a drink, constantly wait in lines, can’t hear anything anyone says, and there is a lot of potential danger being trapped in old buildings in narrow alleys with the exit blocked by people who can’t move.
I was messaging with people as this was unfolding. They felt uncomfortable for these reasons and left about 10 minutes before this all happened. That is responsible thinking.
Ironically, I said to them if they felt it was dangerous, go somewhere safe like an Indonesian soccer stadium.
Anyway…
When media and government start looking for scapegoats to unreasonably blame for tragedy, nothing good will happen and no problems will be solved.
What about American rock festival goers? If you want to spread Trumpian bigotry, you should be at least fair about it.
American rock festival goers, too. Travis Scott fans are the bottom of the barrel and already received their award.
Itaewon’s always had a nasty reputation. Before it was the dirty GI’s. The GI’s are gone, now it’s the dirty drug-pushing foreign-born Koreans (Australia, NZ, Canada, American), the gangsters that work with them, and the low-educated clientele that make up the rest of the Itaewon populace.
And besides, as Korean Man and Bob implied, “their skirts were too short.”
It is extremely racist and cold-blooded to do whataboutisms about waygooks before any of the bodies are buried. Indeed, many of the more recently deceased may still be above room temperature.
Yes, large, boisterous crowds are quite dangerous. But maybe someone who loved Korea more than China would be trying to figure out how to prevent a reoccurrence in Korea.
After that, the lessons learned could be spread to other countries.
Shame on you, Korean Man and Bob.
At this point, the families and friends of the dead and wounded deserve more than Beijing agitprop.
May the Lord comfort and heal the wounded, as well as those who suffered loss.
Not including fire, which has a different dynamic, max concert crowd injuries in the United States total… 11.
Thus is not really comparable to a good old-fashioned Hajj stampede that starts over 200.
This is a very tragic and needless situation. It is hard to know how to blame anyone or how to prevent it in the future.
The best method it seems is to tell people to stay out of overcrowded places. If they must be there, make sure they have an exit strategy.
https://matadornetwork.com/read/10-deadliest-concert-disasters-of-the-last-50-years/
165 DEAD: BEVERLY HILLS SUPPER CLUB, 1977
On May 28, 1977, a fire at the Beverly Hills Supper Club in Southgate, Kentucky, killed 165 people who turned out to see popular Hollywood singer and actor John Davidson during the Memorial Day holiday weekend. More than 200 people were also injured. Reports said the club, just outside Cincinnati, was operating beyond capacity.
https://www.newsnationnow.com/entertainment-news/deadliest-concert-events/
what
As if to prove CH correct, the Chinabot chimes in…
Maybe English comprehension wasn’t important or maybe it’s a CH fanboi?
@Chickenhead, according to this picture in this Tweet of the alley there are businesses with front doors pointed towards the alley:
https://twitter.com/jackwgreenberg/status/1586592433747292160
There is even a “Jewery” store.
FYI – only 10 people died in the Astroworld festival (Travis Scott is a rapper, not a rocker) out of 50,000 attendees. Most of the deaths occurred in front of the stage – the crush resulted from the crowd moving forward as Scott made his appearances. Lots of people were actually treated for unrelated drug overdose. Basically 99% of the Astroworld attendees were safe, even though the crowd was unruly and running even before the concert.
What happened in Itaewon was less of a “stampede” than domino like collapse. If you were among that crowd and bottlenecked in an inclined alley, there was likely no escape from potential disaster. You would have masses of people falling on top of you as every direction around you was blocked.
I saw pictures of the crowd, which can described as a single block of humanity in motion. And they move in and out of TIGHT spaces in unison. That more mass casualty of this nature doesn’t occur in Korea is probably credit to an ordered society. But the people in Itaewon were definitely younger and immature, as evidenced by some of them dancing as ambulances arrived.
GI, good picture.
This brings up more questions than answers.
– Where shutters down?
– How the the glass survive in the emart and jewelry store?
– How could any if those businesses kick people out and back into the crowd?
– How did the pumpkin survive?
Now, I am curious.