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South Korea Crowd Crush
Many of you may have heard the tragic news about the crowd crushing that happened in the South Korean city Itaewan, during their Halloween celebrations. It is believed that 153 people lost their lives and here is what we know so far about the situation.
It is noted by local newspapers that the disaster was “predictable”, stemming from “a lack of a safety management in the Event Manual or crowd crushing accident and authorities’ complacent response”.
While South Korea has a safety manual for festivals with more than 1,000 attendees, the manual assumes an organising body is in charge of safety planning, which was not the case on Saturday.
In a Yongsan district meeting held days before the disaster, the conservative newspaper Chosun Ilbo said “virtually no safety measures were prepared”.
“The damage could have been minimised and crowds spread out had the police and local government set up safety plans to block traffic to Itaewon-ro [the main street], which connects to the alleyway where the accident occurred. It could have also taken measures to make the subway not stop [at Itaewon station].”
South Korean president Yoon Suk-yeol has instructed the government to come up with a crowd control system for spontaneous events that have no organisers.
We hope many other governments around the world see this tragic event as a wake up call. Governments must ensure they have crowd control measures for organised events as well as for celebrations in which crowds gather in their masses.
(Source Guardian)
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