Tag: Seoul

A USFK servicemember and his wife described recently to the Stars & Stripes what it was like to be in the middle of the Itaewon crowd crush disaster:

“Everybody acts like we were supposed to know that this was happening,” Riley Watts said. “Nobody knew.”

‘Like being in water’

As the crowd grew and space on the sidewalk became scarce, the Wattses were surrounded by people who were unintentionally “pushing really hard,” the couple said.

The force of so many people together “would pick me up without me even trying to move,” Riley Watts said, and his feet left the ground.

“It was kind of like being in water; it was just pushing us down the road,” he said.

Amid panicked screams in the crowd, Riley Watts saw a girl fall, he said.

“I reached down to get her and she put her hand in mine, but when I tried to pull her up, she wouldn’t budge,” he said. “And she was on the ground and when the crowd surged, it pushed her down away from me and pushed me away from her.”

Riley said he does not know what became of the girl.

“People were screaming at me, ‘Stop pushing me; I can’t breathe,’” he said. “And I was telling them, ‘It’s not me; I’m not doing it.’”

The couple soon realized that hunting for open space in the crowd was a dangerous task, according to Allyson Watts. As soon as open space materialized, people rushed so quickly into it that it became a “stumbling risk,” she said.

“If there was a sudden opening … then you risked falling over,” she said.

The Wattses eventually got off the sidewalk and onto the street because “it was the only place that was clear,” Allyson added.

“I would rather be in front of a car at that point rather than what we were up against,” Riley Watts said.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link, but I am still waiting for someone to figure out who started the reported pushing at the top of the slope that caused the disaster to happen.

The fact that the pro-North Korea Minbun group is involved shows how these lawyers plan to use the Itaewon crush tragedy to politically attack the Yoon administration:

The bereaved families of some Itaewon crowd crush victims held a news conference Tuesday, calling for the punishment of those responsible for the tragic accident.

The conference was organized in southern Seoul by Minbyun-Lawyers for a Democratic Society, an organization of progressive lawyers, which it says legally represents the families of 34 of 158 people killed during and after Halloween celebrations in Seoul’s Itaewon district on Oct. 29.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

Minbyun for those that don’t remember has been used to legally attack North Korean defectors, one of the groups behind the US beef riots, and have long attacked the USFK relocation plan. They have recently been calling for the signing of a peace treaty to end the Korean War so US troops can be withdrawn:

You would think higher apartment buildings with more apartments in them would help with the affordable housing issues in Seoul:

Seoul’s skyline is set to rise higher as residents push to have their buildings demolished and taller buildings put in their place.  
   
A union representing owners of Sinbanpo 2-cha apartment complex in Jamwon-dong, southern Seoul, wants to raze the existing 12-story apartments and have 49-story structures built.    
   
The apartment complex, completed in 1978, is one of the oldest in Seoul. 

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link, but buildings on the Han River are currently capped at 15 floors and other buildings in Seoul are capped at 35 floors with two exceptions for the 56-story high Raemian Caelitus in Ichon-dong, Yongsan and the 47-story Seoul Forest Trimage in Seongsu-dong.

The Washington Post has an article published that takes a very detailed look at the Itaewon crowd crush disaster:

For nearly four hours before people started dying during a Halloween celebration in Seoul’s Itaewon district, partygoers pleaded with police to divert the crowds that were packing World Food Street and pushing into a 16-foot-wide alley — a tight, sloping space where most of 158 lives would be lost in a gruesome crush.

And once that crush began, it took at least 26 minutes for emergency personnel to start effectively evacuating people. Some victims were trapped for more than an hour before rescuers reached them. The delays proved catastrophic.

A Washington Post analysis of more than 350 videos and photos, some obtained exclusively and many reviewed by experts at The Post’s request, found that multiple critical factors contributed to the tragedy and death toll in Itaewon on the night of Oct. 29.

Washington Post

You can read more at the link, but really I only learned two new things from the article. First is that 119 calls were being placed about people being injured due to overcrowding in the alley almost four hours before people died. There was police officers there trying to redirect the crowd before the crush happened. However, there was not enough of them to stop more people from entering the alley.

What the article does not answer is who was the group reports claimed was pushing people on top of the slope? Was there really a Korean celebrity sighting that triggered the pushing? Hopefully someone figures that out because the alley was over capacity for almost four hours before the pushing caused it to turn tragic.

After what happened at Itaewon I can understand why Gordon Ramsay’s team would be concerned about a crowd crush happening in a subway car with him in it:

Celebrity British chef Gordon Ramsey’s demeanor during his three-day visit in Seoul from Nov. 9 to 11 for the opening of his signature restaurant created a stir that continued even after he left the country. 

This time, he was at the center of controversy for his request to add security to his subway commute on Thursday. 

It was an unprecedented security request made by a celebrity regarding public transport, which came following the Itaewon disaster that claimed 157 lives in a deadly crowd crush on Oct. 29. 

News reports on the request triggered public outrage over the use of public resources to protect a foreign celebrity.

Gordon Ramsay Korea filed a request with police for one hour of “safety cooperation” during the British chef’s planned subway trip from 11 a.m. Thursday.

The company’s request did not mention stationing officers, but expressed concerns that the appearance of a foreign celebrity could lead to large crowds gathering in public spaces, officials from Seoul Metro, Korea Railroad Corp. (KORAIL) and Seoul Subway Police told The Korea Times, Sunday.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

It is pretty clear that the political opposition wants to form this committee so they can come up with findings to blame the Yoon administration for the crowd crush tragedy in Itaewon:

The main opposition Democratic Party (DP) and two minor progressive parties submitted a joint request Wednesday for a parliamentary investigation into the Itaewon crowd crush despite opposition from the ruling party.

The DP, the Justice Party (JP) and the Basic Income Party submitted the request to the National Assembly’s Bills Division on Wednesday afternoon, with an aim to have the request reported at a parliamentary plenary session scheduled for Thursday.

“We should clearly determine where the responsibility lies and come up with measures to prevent a recurrence by looking thoroughly into the accident, including its cause and measures taken before or after the tragedy,” the parties said in the request sponsored by 181 lawmakers.

The parties called for forming an 18-member special committee to oversee the probe and look into whether measures by government agencies were appropriate and whether there were attempts to minimize or cover up the tragedy.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but prosecutors already have an investigation going on that has led to a number of arrests and firings already.

It is pretty clear that the messaging from the investigation into the Itaewon Crushing Disaster is that local officials are the ones the blame for the tragedy:

A special investigation team raided the office of the national police chief and dozens of other offices Tuesday as part of an investigation into the deadly Itaewon crowd crush that killed at least 156 people.

A total of 55 offices were raided, including the offices of National Police Agency Commissioner General Yoon Hee-keun and Kim Kwang-ho, the chief of the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency (SMPA), according to officials. 

Other locations include offices of senior SMPA intelligence and situation monitoring officers, the Yongsan Police Station, Yongsan Ward office chief Park Hee-young, the Seoul Metropolitan Fire & Disaster Headquarters and the Yongsan Fire Station.

Yonhap

The now fired Yongsan Police Chief Lee Im-Jae is getting absolutely crushed in the media for his slow response to the tragedy:

An independent team of investigators announced that Lee had belatedly arrived at the police substation after he had insisted on moving by his car despite a heavy traffic jam around the Itaewon area at the time.

After leaving a restaurant where he had been having dinner with officers from his office, Lee had arrived at Noksapyeong Station at around 10 p.m. The station is located just 10 minutes by foot from the scene.

However, Lee’s car detoured from the subway station to find other ways, and he was only able to arrive at a street near the police substation around between 10:55 p.m. and 11:01 p.m.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but I saw on the Korean news video footage from the restaurant of Lee eating with other officers. It can be seen that he is getting calls which were supposedly warnings of dangerous crowds that needed to be responded to in Itaewon. Lee said he would respond after he and the other officers finished eating. Instead of walking to the scene and arriving in time to help he insisted on being driven. Driving to the scene made him arrive nearly an hour later than if he would have walked thus arriving too late to prevent the first deaths.

The bodies were not even cold yet from the Itaewon Crushing Disaster before the political opposition decided to use them to demand the President and other government officials resign:

Only a few hours after the news broke last month about a deadly crowd crush in central Seoul’s Itaewon, Nam Young-hee, vice chief of the Institute for Democracy, a think tank of the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea (DPK), concluded that President Yoon Suk-yeol and his safety minister were to blame and demanded they step down immediately.

The comment, which she made when police and emergency workers were still scrambling to gather the facts, was a grim sign of how the tragic incident, which killed 156 people and injured 197 others, could be used ― and exploited ― politically.

Two days after the end of a national mourning period for the victims and their families, Rep. Lee Jae-myung, leader of the DPK, called for the resignations of all relevant top officials, including Prime Minister Han Duck-soo.

“The president, who is responsible for this disaster and all state affairs, should apologize sincerely to the people and the victims,” Lee said during a meeting at the National Assembly in Seoul, Monday. “Taking responsibility comes with action rather than words … There should be a sweeping reshuffle, including the resignation of the prime minister.” 

Lee also called for a new investigation into the case under an independent counsel, saying that police and prosecutors under Yoon cannot be trusted.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link, but I guess the DPK expected the President to be out there personally conducting crowd control in Itaewon.