Crowds are seen around the area, where dozens of people suffered cardiac arrest, in the popular nightlife district of Itaewon in Seoul on 30 October, 2022. Photo: AFP
Seoul's favourite club district is made up of tiny alleyways that wind around a steep hill. When about 100,000 people flocked there for Halloween, disaster struck.
As Freya navigated claustrophobic crowds celebrating Halloween in downtown Seoul, she tried desperately to hold onto her friends' hands, seeking safety in numbers.
The 33-year-old American felt the swell of the crowd move suddenly, but assumed a fight must have broken out.
She had decided to avoid the small laneway that would become the site of the calamity, instead going to a bar further up.
It was a single decision that inadvertently may have saved Freya's life.
"I tried to hold hands with my friends, because I could feel people pushing forward," she said.
"Six of us were separated multiple times."
When she emerged soon later, she was met with body bags, flashing lights and scenes of despair.
Messages started to arrive on her phone from friends checking if she was alive.
"It was so surreal," she said.
Freya knows she is incredibly lucky.
Others who walked down the narrow alleyway only realised they had entered a death trap when it was far too late to save themselves.
Yoon Yae Il, 20, isn't sure how he got caught in the crowd crush, but remembers it taking him two hours to escape to freedom.
"I could not move at all," he said.
"I was so scared."
Itaewon, a cosmopolitan neighbourhood famed for its nightlife, is made up of tiny alleyways that wind around a steep hill.
While Itaewon is crowded almost every weekend as young Koreans hit the local bars and clubs, it's estimated that 100,000 people packed into the area to celebrate Halloween weekend.
The outdoor event was the first since the pandemic began in 2020 to be free of mask mandates and crowd limits.
A crowd of mainly young Koreans filled the streets, dressed in Halloween costumes.
But in two alleyways that run towards Itaewon's wider main street, something went terribly wrong.
A huge surge of bodies left more than 150 people dead, including Australian woman Grace Rached.
This is how the disaster unfolded.
'I really thought that I was finally going to die'
Even before the night took a deadly turn, some in Itaewon had a bad feeling about the size of the growing crowd.
Local shop owner Mr Choi had operated a men's clothing store near the laneway for 30 years.
The crowds he saw on Saturday night were much larger than anything he had seen before.
Emergency service personnel are seen in the alley where the Halloween stampede took place late 29 October, in the neighbourhood of Itaewon in Seoul. Photo: AFP
When he closed shop at 7pm, more than two hours before the stampede, it was already difficult to walk to his bike.
"I was concerned about this type of thing even on Friday," he said.
"There were big crowds then, but not like Saturday."
The cause of the crush is unclear, but at some point after 10pm, the densely packed crowd surged forward.
Korea's interior minister confirmed police did not anticipate such big crowds and had sent extra officers for crowd control to oversee a protest in a central suburb of Gwanghwamun.
"My friend said she saw one police officer in that crowd," said witness Janelle Story.
"In that huge, huge mass of people, only one authority was there trying to help us.
"Inchon is famous for its crowds. It's not unusual. But this was next level. Shoulder to shoulder. Front to back. Just shimmying along on those streets. Just no control about where you're going to move at times, based on where the crowd pushes you."
Many of the deaths and injuries occurred in the two tight alleys measuring just 45 metres each along the Hamilton Hotel.
Where people were trapped
Some parts of the alleyways were just under four metres wide.
One person who was in the crowd on Saturday night tweeted that they witnessed people "screaming" and "falling like dominoes".
"I really thought that I was finally going to die," they said.
Videos taken by those trapped in the alleys show people swaying back and forth, usually a sign that "crowd quakes" are rippling through.
Experts on crowd disasters say at that point, the group has become something like a "fluid mass" and people can be picked up off their feet and moved forward metres at a time.
"Wildly unsafe in Itaewon right now," one woman wrote on Twitter.
She also posted a video, in which she can be repeatedly heard gasping "oh my god" as the crowd closes in around her. [WARNING: The following video contains strong language.]
Wildly unsafe in #Itaewon right now. #Halloween #Seoul #이태원 #서울 pic.twitter.com/CBIfXdplx9
— 민자넬⁷ (@janelles_story) October 29, 2022
People lucky enough to be safely inside venues in the alleyways watched in horror as the crowd below them screamed and reached out for help.
Another video shows a man climbing up a wall to escape the heaving crowd below him.
Emergency responders find carnage
For Nathan Taverniti, an Australian national living in Seoul, it felt like it took an eternity for paramedics to arrive.
"There were just obviously wave of people coming in - this is the middle of Itaewon - waves of people coming in, and I lost my friends," he said.
The young Australian broke down in sobs as he recounted what happened in the stifling alley.
There were so many people ... and I had to turn around and I told the crowd, 'you can't come this way, people are dying', because I already knew how bad it was. People were being so rude," he said.
The Department of Foreign Affairs has confirmed that one Australian died in the crowd crush.
The ABC was told that an Australian is in intensive care and a dual citizen is in stable condition, but has not been able to independently verify those reports.
South Korean authorities say the first call for help came shortly after 10:22pm.
Paramedics attend to a victim believed to have suffered from cardiac arrest, in the popular nightlife district of Itaewon in Seoul on 30 October, 2022. Photo: AFP
Emergency responders were told several people in the crowd had difficulty breathing.
But when they got there several minutes later, the true extent of the tragedy became clear.
They found huge throngs of young people, in some areas so tightly packed that they were stacked on top of each other.
Videos taken from the scene show paramedics and partygoers performing chest compressions on row upon row of unconscious people.
Those who couldn't be saved were covered with towels and left on the street until an ambulance could move them.
Choi Seong-beom, the fire chief of Seoul's Yongsan district, said most of those who died were in their teens or 20s.
Among the dead were 22 foreigners, including visitors from China, Iran and Norway.
How did it all go so wrong?
A specially created hotline was flooded with panicked phone calls as Koreans woke on Sunday to the news of the disaster on Saturday night.
The bodies of those who died were moved into a nearby gymnasium so they could be identified by loved ones.
Many identifications have been made already, but the grim task could take several days to complete.
South Korea's President Yoon Suk Yeol declared a period of national mourning and called for a review of the tragedy.
"We will have relevant ministries ... conduct emergency inspections, not only for Halloween events, but also for local festivals and thoroughly manage them so they are conducted in an orderly and safe manner," he vowed in a televised address.
The crowd crush is the worst peacetime disaster to strike South Korea in eight years.
In another tragedy to mostly befall Korea's young people, an overloaded ferry capsized during a trip to Jeju island in 2014.
More than 300 people died, most of them high school students, who obeyed the captain's order not to abandon ship.
- ABC
