- Jean Mackenzie
- BBC Korea correspondent in Seoul
Nuir Ahmed was pulled out of the crowd at the time, seeing many people struggling to breathe.
The worst stampede accident in Itaewon, Seoul, South Korea happened in the country’s history. The BBC interviewed several foreign survivors and witnesses. They recalled being pushed around by the crowd, people around them suffocated to death, and many passers-by helped the injured. Doing CPR, but in vain.
Itaewon is one of the most popular nightlife areas in Seoul, South Korea. The “Halloween” stampede tragedy occurred on the 29th. It is the first festival without masks after the new crown epidemic in Seoul. It is estimated that 100,000 people gathered at the scene, and one more than 10 p.m. The trampling of people in the narrow inclined alley has caused 154 deaths, most of them young women, including 26 foreigners. South Korean President Yoon Seok-wyeh declared a national mourning for 7 days.
Nuhyil Ahammed, an IT worker from India and living in Seoul who survived the incident, said in an interview with a BBC reporter in South Korea that he was crowded with friends on the Itaewon Street that night. Narrow, sloping alleys, immobilized, people pushed in all directions, some dragged to the ground, some unable to breathe. “People are pushing from behind, like waves – you can’t do anything,” he said.
He said he could not remember why he entered the alley with his friends, but only remembered that it was crowded with people in costumes, and when they were drawn into the crowd, he felt inappropriate. “You stand still and someone pushes you from the front, or from behind. It happened a few times and I realized something was wrong and I was afraid something would happen.”
He said he fell in the crowd and managed to get to the stairs by the alley. “A woman with angel wings waved to me and I managed to climb a high step”. He witnessed the death of the trapped people right on the steps, “people were suffocating, screaming… being squeezed… falling… too many people”, “I was in Watching this happen from the steps, they don’t know what to do, and we can’t do anything.”
He said he felt helpless watching people take what was likely their last breath, and worried about his friends, but none of them answered the phone and were contacted several hours later, knowing they had fled the crowd.
The stampede accident occurred in a narrow alley with a steep slope of about 4 meters in width near the Hamilton Hotel on the World Food Street in Itaewon. The picture shows South Korean police officers looking at the entrance of the narrow alley.
Ahmed said it wasn’t until the crowd dispersed and the ambulance arrived that he realised what had happened and “they started pulling bodies from below”. He recalled that a young man knew his friend died on the spot “but he kept doing CPR for him for 30 minutes” and that someone tried to stop him, but the man wouldn’t stop. He still remembered that some people next to him were still wearing makeup, as if nothing had happened.
Freelance journalist Raphael Rashid told the BBC that “no one really understood what was going on” during the stampede, with police standing in police cars “desperately telling people to get out of here as soon as possible”.
futile CPR
The severity of the incident gradually emerged, with ambulances so packed with the wounded that rescuers had to leave the confirmed dead at the scene for up to an hour. Most of the casualties were young people in their teens and twenties, and nearby passersby desperately performed CPR for the unconscious.
Ana, a 24-year-old woman from Spain, was in a bar next to the alley with several foreign friends when the stampede occurred. They wanted to leave at about 11 o’clock when they saw the ambulance coming in and the police running around, asking people to move away. The dead and wounded make room.
Anna recalled to the BBC: “There were too many dead and wounded and they needed help from someone who was okay to do CPR. Everyone started going in to help. Two of our friends could do CPR and they went out to help.”
She said three minutes or more later, the two female friends ran back, “looking very traumatized and crying. Because they tried to save five or six people, but they all died at the hands of my friends. “.
So Anna went to help, “I can’t do CPR, but I follow the instructions of the people outside”, “They told me how to hold their heads and open their mouths, and so on. I tried to help, but They’re all dead too. I have to say, most of the people who were dragged out for CPR were out of breath.” “We can’t do anything, that’s the biggest trauma,” she admitted.
Avoidable man-made disaster?
image source,EPA
154 people are known to have died, including 26 foreigners. Most of the victims were in their 20s.
One day after the incident, South Korean Minister of the Interior and Security Lee Sang-min said at a press conference that he did not expect so many people to gather, saying that the stampede “could not be prevented by pre-arranging police or firefighters”, and said that there were people in Seoul on the same day. Other demonstrations led to the dispersion of police forces.
According to South Korean media reports, the police deployed only 200 police officers in Itaewon this year to investigate crimes such as drugs, sex crimes, and theft. From the blockade to control the crowd.
Ahmed, a survivor from India, also said that he had been to Itaewon to celebrate Halloween in the past five years. Last year, there were more police in the district. This year, the crowd exceeded previous years but “there is no crowd control”.
133 people were injured in the incident, 37 of them seriously, and the death toll is likely to increase. “I couldn’t sleep last night, and I can still see people dying in front of me,” Ahmed said.