Photo: AHN JUNG-HWAN/YONHAP/AP PHOTO/PICTURE ALLIANCE / Deutsche Welle
South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol opened on Monday (31.10.2022) the altar in memory of the 154 people killed in a crowd during a Halloween party, while the authorities faced accusations that the lack of control police caused the disaster.
After the president and his wife left white flowers At the huge altar built in Seoul by the victims – mostly young women – of Saturday’s disaster, the public began to arrive.
A man knelt before the black altar covered with white flowers and wept.
At a makeshift memorial next to an underground station in the popular Itaewon district, where the tragedy occurred , people stopped to pray and leave flowers.
Public and media blame the police
Meanwhile, media and social networks began to spread growing calls for accountability, as failures in crowd control became known.
Until 100,000 people, mostly young and many in Halloween costumes, attended to the small, winding alleys of Itaewon, and witnesses cited a lack of security and crowd control.
Police said Monday that they dispatched 137 officers to the site, a a figure that he pointed out as higher than that of previous years. But local reports indicated that the police dispatched were more focused on policing drug use than crowd control.
“ This was a disaster that could be avoided “, said Lee Young-ju, professor at the Department of Fire and Disasters at the University from Seoul, to YTN television.
Government defends police operation
Complaints were spread on social networks that the police this year did not control the agglomeration and allowed Many people will gather around the underground station and in the alley that was the epicenter of the disaster.
But the government defended the police plan on Sunday. “It was not a problem that would have been solved by sending police or firefighters in advance,” Interior Minister Lee Sang-min told reporters.
Tens of thousands of people filled a steep alley no more than three meters wide, and witnesses reported scenes of chaos as people pushed to get through, with no police on site to guide the crowd.
Twenty-six foreigners on the fateful list
According to witnesses, people were trapped in the alley and tried to get out, with some climbing on top of others.
The majority of the 154 dead, including 26 foreigners, had been identified on Sunday. But the number of victims could rise because at least 33 people are in critical condition.
The country began a week of national mourning, with the cancellation of events and concerts and the flags flying at half-staff.
Among the 26 deceased foreigners there are people of Iranian (5), Chinese (4), Russian (4), Japanese (2), American (2), as well as an Uzbek, a Sri Lankan, a French, an Australian, a Norwegian, a Thai, an Austrian, a Vietnamese and a Kazakh.
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