Lack of appropriate safety measures to manage mass crowd situations may lead to a horrible tragedy.
On Saturday night of 29 October 2022, tens of thousands of people flocked to Itaewon in Seoul, South Korea to celebrate Halloween. Large crowds gathered in the area known for its nightlife, bars, and restaurants. Few minutes past 10 pm, chaos erupted at a narrow downhill alley that links a busy restaurant district to the main street. There was a deadly crash of population in the alley, leaving 158 people killed and 196 others injured. The victims were mostly young adults.
The tragedy was not a stampede—stampede is when people had space to run. In Itaewon, however, there was not space to move. While the authorities focus solely on finding scapegoats, I, deeply disappointed and angered by their neglect of addressing the root causes and preventive measures, decided to explore how we can better respond to such situations in the future.