In Seoul, going to Itaewon on Halloween is a convention. Zhou Yun, who studied in South Korea, said, "Itaewon is one of the most prosperous commercial districts in South Korea. If you go out for Halloween, everyone will think of strolling there."
Perhaps because of the three years of epidemic lockdown, people are particularly eager for this festival - that night, nearly 100,000 people flowed into this downtown area about 1.4 kilometers long and sloping. Danger is in the carnival. On the evening of October 29, South Korea time, a stampede occurred in Itaewon, Seoul. As of 17:30 local time on October 30, the number of deaths in the Itaewon stampede accident in Seoul, South Korea rose to 154. Among the dead were 98 females and 56 males. It contains 26 foreigners from 14 countries.
The crowd on the night of the incident
The incident happened was an alley in Itaewon Bar Street, on a narrow slope about 4 meters wide. In the Itaewon incident discussion area of the famous Korean social networking website teamblind, many witnesses posted about the situation at the scene that night: "The alley next to Itaewon is very narrow, steep and slippery", "I can't walk in high heels", "It's hard to believe that the body is just lying in Seoul just casually."
" feels wrong"
Chinese student Zhou Yun arrived in Itaewon around 19 o'clock that night. "There are much more people than in previous years. In the particularly crowded places, the feet were pushed away without touching the ground." She and her friends came to the vicinity of the bar street and tried to walk in. "I really couldn't get in. I squeezed them twice but failed." Her chest was pressed against her chest, mixed with the pungent smell of perfume, and the powerful force of the crowd squeezed her, "I felt that I was about to suffocate."
stayed for about an hour, and she and her friends chose to leave. When they walked to the subway station near Itaewon, they found that the entrance entrance was "completely blocked". They were in a stalemate with the two parties who came out and entered, and hundreds of people were stuck at the subway entrance and motionless. They moved slowly inward and it took 20 minutes to finally get into the station.
Standing on the return subway, she breathed a sigh of relief, but saw that the carriage opposite that had just arrived at Itaewon was still spitting out dense crowds of people.
hour hand moved to 20 o'clock, and six Chinese students from Central University, including Wu Chuan, were stepping into Itaewon. "In previous years, everyone had the tradition of celebrating festivals in Itaewon. My friends also wore handmade milk tea clothes, and I also dressed up as a character in the movie." They arrived here by taxi, and as soon as they got off the bus, the group "feeled something wrong" and "there are too many people to get off the bus."
"The main passerby is fine, at least your feet can touch the ground, but when we walked to the bar street, there were so many people that we could not control our direction at all. There were petite girls among us, so we didn't dare to continue moving forward."
About 10 minutes before the stampede accident, Wu Chuan and his group changed their minds temporarily, paid 30,000 won't "expensive tickets" and walked into a bar with fewer queues at the intersection. Shortly after they entered the bar, the abortion on the street "explosively increased". Friends who were traveling with Wuchuan later lamented, "If we didn't go in, we would be the ones stuck on the street that couldn't breathe."
Storm Center
A Korean netizen posted on the teamblind social networking website to admit that he had pushed and shoved on the periphery of the accident site: "Because this is a festival, I drank wine and my brain was in a slightly drunk state... I swayed back and forth according to the rhythm of the music... If I don't think about this seriously, I will enjoy it, but for the people in the middle, if the time for pushing on both sides is different, it will really explode." He reflected that doing this in an open place may not be so dangerous, but in the cramped bar street, the people trapped in the center have no room to escape.
On the Korean social networking website teamblind, a person pushing and shoving on the outside posted a confession.
The core area of the incident was a narrow alley.
The alley was relatively wide on both sides, but the alley itself was very narrow, with a slope between 30 and 45 degrees. "When it was crowded, if you were not particularly tall, you could walk forward without touching the ground," Wu Chuan recalled.
20 hours later, Yang Yang, a friend of Chinese student Qi Wanwei, struggled among the crowds on the bar street. He sent a video of Qi Wanwei on the scene. The crowd in the narrow alley pushed each other and several tall men started fighting. In the chaos, the girls in the center of the crowd began to scream, while the outside of the crowd held their phones high, and some tried to rush out of the edge from the inside.
"I was still shouting for help the next second, but I didn't breathe the next second, and she was right in front of my face... I couldn't move, so I could only watch and the boy behind me vomited all over." A Chinese netizen who was injured and still receiving treatment in the hospital called this an unforgettable nightmare in this life. "There was already a sparse and stuffy air, but I still breathed the only air because I wanted to live."
As the chance of survival was getting smaller and smaller, she almost closed her eyes, "I'm really not pretentious, when you die three times in a row, three times died by your side. People, when you are still holding their bodies against their faces, you will know what despair is. "Later, when she saw the news, she realized that she had been trapped for 1 hour. "I really don't know how I persevered."
"Hands are shaking"
At 11 o'clock in the evening, Wu Chuan and his group walked out of the bar and saw the high and low heads outside the door, with police cars and ambulances mixed in. The police had to stand on the police car to maintain order, but the people in front could not hear it, and the people behind were still squeezing forward.
The crowd gradually evacuated, the people lying on the ground were in disarray, and others were doing CPR for them, some were moaning, some were yelling, and Halloween lights were still flashing.
After leaving Itaewon, Wu Chuan's mobile phone signal was finally restored due to the interruption of the crowd. "Start to bounce news wildly". He received yellow "public safety alarms", "Itaewon stampede accident" and calls from relatives and friends, and only then did he realize that he had just passed by death.
"If I didn't enter that tavern to save money, this might be another story I can't imagine." The idea changed the fate of the six people that night.
Wu Chuan left Itaewon, the public safety alert received on his mobile phone
Wu Chuan and others printed on the door when they went to the bar
Qi Wanwei's friend Yang Yang was lucky enough to escape, "He found the crowded and evacuated quickly. But he couldn't run away, and was squeezed into a restaurant next to him, which was considered to have escaped."
Seoul citizens Gu Shanxian's friend was in the military service and maintained order on the bar street that night. After getting up early the next day, she called the other party: "He is alive, but PTSD (PTSD). He told me that there are too many people who have been crushed to death, and (doing anything) is useless. I asked him about his situation, and he said that he wanted to rest now, he was too tired and sad, and his hands were shaking."
(some of the interviewees in the article are pseudonyms)
column editor: Wang Xiao Text editor: Wang Xiao
Source: Author: Xia Jieyi Niu Yitong Li Chuyue
