South Korea mourns Halloween crowd surge victims
South Koreans flocked on Monday to memorials honouring the 154 people killed in a crowd surge at Halloween celebrations, as authorities faced accusations that lax crowd control had caused the disaster. Mourners wept, prayed and placed flowers at a huge official altar set up in central Seoul for victims – mostly young women – of the Saturday crush, with many railing against authorities' failures to prevent the catastrophic loss of young life. "I am devastated by what happened, they were just trying to have a good time," 19-year-old student Hwang Gyu-hyeon said, weeping and struggling to speak clearly, as she explained how the deaths of so many people her own age had affected her. "I pray for the victims. I can't believe this accident happened despite the signs that were clear beforehand. Nothing was done to prepare for this crowd," she said. Song Jung-hee, 69, said she kept thinking about how "excited and spirited" the young victims must have been, eager to enjoy a night out without Covid restrictions for the first time in three years. "If only there had been more police officers to keep order, this would not have happened," she said. At a makeshift memorial outside a subway station in the popular Itaewon nightlife district, where the tragedy occurred, dozens of mourners gathered, many wiping away tears as they placed white chrysanthemum and bottles of soju on the altar. One sign left at the memorial said: "At an age when you all were all about to blossom like flowers... My heart is broken. I pray all the souls will rest in peace in heaven." Calls for accountability were growing on Monday in the press and online, as potential lapses of crowd control and policing emerged. As many as 100,000 people – mostly in their teens and 20s, many wearing Halloween costumes – had poured into Itaewon's small, winding streets, with eyewitnesses describing scant security and no crowd control. Police said at a briefing on Monday they had deployed 137 officers to the event, pointing out that the number was significantly higher than previous years. But local reports said many of the police deployed were focused on drug use, rather than crowd control. Online, claims also spread that police this year were not actively managing the crowd, which allowed too many people to congregate around the subway station and in the alleyway at the epicentre of the disaster. (AFP)