At least 149 people were killed and scores more were injured in a stampede at a packed Halloween event in central Seoul late Saturday, officials said, in one of South Korea’s worst peacetime accidents.
The crowd surge and crush happened in the capital’s popular Itaewon district, where local reports said as many as 100,000 people had gone to celebrate Halloween on Saturday night, clogging the area’s narrow alleyways and winding streets.
Eye-witnesses described scrambling to get out of the suffocating crowd as people ended up piling on top of one another, with paramedics, quickly overwhelmed by the number of victims, asking passers-by to administer first aid.
“There were so many people just being pushed around and I got caught in the crowd and I couldn’t get out at first too,” 30-year-old Jeon Ga-eul told AFP. “I felt like an accident was bound to happen.”
The fire department told AFP that at least 149 people, including two foreigners, had been killed in the stampede, which occurred around 10:00 pm (1300 GMT).
The ministry of interior said that an estimated 150 people had been injured, as of 6 am local time.
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