This response seems extremely slow considering there is a police station not very far from Itaewon Station:

A police squad first arrived at the scene of the Halloween crowd crush in Seoul nearly 85 minutes after the incident erupted, police data showed Sunday.

A total of five police squads affiliated with the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency (SMPA) were mobilized on the day of the crowd crush in Seoul’s Itaewon district that killed at least 156 people, mostly those in their 20s, according to the data submitted by the SMPA to Rep. Lee Tae-won of the main opposition Democratic Party.

The No. 11 police squad first arrived at the scene at 11:40 p.m. on Oct. 29 under the instruction of Lee Im-Jae, a former chief of the Yongsan Police Station that includes the Itaewon neighborhood. The first call to the police’s 112 emergency hotline was made around 10:15 p.m.

Four other squads arrived at the scene one by one, starting from 11:50 p.m. on Oct. 29 to 1:14 a.m. on Oct. 30, according to the SMPA data.

Lee — temporarily suspended from his post — was also found to have arrived at the Itaewon police substation at 11:05 p.m., some 50 minutes after the crush happened.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

If anyone deserved a Soldier’s Medal it is these three U.S. troops from Camp Casey. I like the comment from one of the survivors that the one large Soldier was pulling people out of the alley like he was picking radishes from a field:

 A trio of foreign heroes praised for saving more than 30 lives from last Saturday’s tragic crowd crush in Seoul turned out to be American soldiers stationed in South Korea, some survivors said Thursday.

One of the survivors, known only as a twentysomething man living in Cheongju, central South Korea, told Yonhap News Agency he believes the three foreign heroes are U.S. soldiers serving in Camp Casey in Dongducheon, about 50 km north of Seoul.

The man told local media earlier he was pulled out of the chaos in a narrow alleyway in Itaewon before fainting and being carried to safety.

He said he is convinced the heroic Americans are Jarmil Taylor, 40, Jerome Augusta, 34, and Dane Beathard, 32, after belatedly learning of their interviews with French news agency AFP published Sunday.

He said he went to Itaewon on Saturday to enjoy the Halloween festivities with his friends but fell down in the crowd in the narrow alleyway before being crushed for about 15 minutes.

The Cheongju man, who is 182 cm tall and weighs 96 kg, said a strong black man rescued him from the crowd as if pulling radishes from a field.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

North Korea’s war on fish continued this weekend:

North Korea fired four short-range ballistic missiles (SRBM) toward the Yellow Sea Saturday, the South Korean military said.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said it detected the launches from Tongrim County in North Pyongyan Province between around 11:32 a.m. and 11:59 a.m.

The missiles flew about 130 kilometers at an apogee of 20 km with a top speed of Mach 5, it added. 

The North’s latest provocation came on the last day of the extended large-scale combined air drills of the South and the United States.

On Saturday two B-1B strategic bombers joined the Vigilant Storm exercise alongside four South Korean F-35A stealth fighter jets and 4 U.S. F-16 fighters, the JCS said.

It marked the first time the B-1B Lancer has been deployed to the Korean Peninsula since 2017, in a demonstration of Washington’s firm commitment to extended deterrence for South Korea and the allies’ combined defense posture, JCS added.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

Please leave anything you want to discuss in the comments section.

According to the article this failed ICBM launch was intended to fly over Japan. This is one of my concerns that a failed missile launch ends up impacting in Japan, what could the response to such an incident lead to?:

North Korea continued its saber-rattling for the second day straight, Thursday, by firing at least six missiles, but its military show of force ended up being compromised after the launch of the country’s largest and most powerful intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) failed while in flight.

The unsuccessful ICBM launch may cause further delays to the possible next nuclear test by the North, which is believed to have been fully prepared for it since May, as it is still short of putting the United States on high alert or gaining its attention, according to diplomatic observers. 

According to the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), North Korea launched what was presumed to be an ICBM from the Sunan area of Pyongyang at 7:40 a.m., then two short-range ballistic missiles (SRBMs) from Kaechon in South Pyongan Province at 8:39 a.m. The JCS also said that it detected three SRBMs between 9:35 p.m. and 9:49 p.m. traveling toward the East Sea from Koksan County in North Hwanghae Province. 

As for the ICBM, the JCS did not specify what type of missile North Korea had prepared, but it was presumed to be the Hwasong-17, which analysts say may be capable of carrying multiple warheads and traveling up to 15,000 kilometers, far enough to strike anywhere in the U.S. The missile was first unveiled in October 2020.

The ICBM flew about 760 kilometers at an apogee of around 1,920 kilometers and a top speed of Mach 15, but something seemed to have gone wrong following second-stage separation, the JCS added.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link, but the failure means that the North Koreans will likely have to do another ICBM launch in the near term.

The U.S. has made it clear once again it will not recognize North Korea as nuclear weapons state:

The United States does not and will not recognize North Korea as a nuclear weapons state as it seeks to completely denuclearize the Korean Peninsula, a state department spokesperson said Monday.

“That is not our policy. I do not foresee that ever becoming a policy,” Ned Price told a press briefing when asked about the possibility of the U.S. ever recognizing North Korea as a nuclear state.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.