South Korea police admit poor response
Factors leading to the deadly stampede emerge
SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — South Korea's police chief said Tuesday that officers had received multiple urgent reports of danger ahead of a deadly crowd crush at a Halloween event but their handling of them was "insufficient."
At least 156 mostly young people were killed, and scores more injured, in a deadly crowd surge late Saturday at the first post-pandemic Halloween party in Seoul's popular Itaewon nightlife district.
An estimated 100,000 people had flocked to the area, but because it was not an "official" event with a designated organizer, neither the police nor local authorities were actively managing the crowd.
"There were multiple reports to the police indicating the seriousness at the site just before the accident occurred," national police chief Yoon Hee-keun said.
Police knew "a large crowd had gathered even before the accident occurred, urgently indicating the danger," he said, acknowledging the way this information was handled had been "insufficient."
Seoul's interior minister on Tuesday became the first top official to make a clear apology to the public for the disaster, one of the worst ever in the country's history.
"I would like to take this opportunity to express my sincere apologies to the public as the minister in charge of the people's safety for this accident," Lee Sang-min said before bowing his head before lawmakers and cameras.
He promised to investigate what had caused the crowd crush and ensure a disaster on this scale could never happen again.
Police deployed only 137 officers to Itaewon for Halloween, while 6,500 officers were present at a protest across town attended by about 25,000 people, local reports said.
South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol said Tuesday the country needed to urgently improve its system for managing large crowds in the wake of the disaster.
"The safety of the people is important, whether or not there is an event organiser," he told a cabinet meeting.
He called for the country to develop "cutting-edge digital capabilities" to improve crowd management — but critics claim such tools already exist and were not deployed in Itaewon.