South Korean Halloween crush will be attributed to carelessness

Friday, South Korean police blamed incompetence and poor planning for the deaths of more than 150 people during a Halloween crowd crush in Seoul last year.

Numerous young costumed partygoers, predominantly women in their 20s, perished on October 29 in the capital’s Itaewon nightlife district.

At the conclusion of its investigation, a special panel that had spent months examining material and interviewing officials concluded that there had been huge planning and response failures, but refrained from assigning blame to any high government or national policy agency officials.

The chairman of the team, Sohn Jae-han, told reporters, “Organizations that are legally required to prevent and respond to disasters, such as the police, district offices, and Seoul Metro, did not establish safety measures in advance or developed inadequate plans.”

On the day of the catastrophe, “appropriate measures were not taken despite receiving rescue requests,” he claimed.

He said that poor cooperation between organizations and delays in communications and relief activities contributed to the increased death toll.

Lee Im-jae, the former commander of the Yongsan Police Station, which administers Itaewon, and Park Hee-young, the head of the Yongsan district office, are among the six individuals arrested as a result of the investigation.

Lee and Park are both being held on suspicion of professional negligence resulting in death.

In December, a youngster who had survived the crush was found dead in what appeared to be a suicide; officials determined that he should be counted as a victim of the accident, bringing the total number of fatalities to 159.

However, the team did not criticize any officials from the Seoul city government, the interior ministry, or the national policy agency, as it was “difficult to conclude there was a concrete violation of duty,” Sohn said.

Interior Minister Lee Sang-min is under increasing pressure to resign in light of the tragedy.

Shortly after the incident, he was heavily criticized for suggesting that more firefighters and police officers in Itaewon would not have stopped the tragedy.

Since then, he has apologized numerous times, including last week in person to the relatives of the victims, but he has not offered to quit.

The swift transition of South Korea from a war-torn, impoverished backwater to Asia’s fourth-largest economy and a cultural powerhouse on the global stage is a source of national pride.

However, a number of preventable calamities, such as the Halloween crush and the 304-person Sewol ferry drowning in 2014, have eroded public trust in the government.