Scenes of horror in Seoul after Halloween stampede

"I felt like an accident was bound to happen," a witness said

The body of a victim of a Halloween stampede is carried on a stretcher in Seoul on October 30, 2022

Party-goers in costumes fleeing in panic, desperate attempts at first aid on the sidewalks, scores of bodies lined up under makeshift shrouds: in Seoul's lively Itaewon district, a Halloween festival turned to tragedy Saturday.

More than 150 people -- mostly in their teens and 20s -- were killed in a crowd surge and stampede, the cause of which is still unclear, in this popular, cosmopolitan district of the South Korean capital, located close to a former US military base and renowned for its bars and clubs.

"My friend said: something terrible is happening outside," said Jeon Ga-eul, 30, who was having a drink at a bar at the moment the stampede hit.

The district, which was immortalised by the popular 2020 K-Drama hit Itaewon Class, is a warren of steeply sloping, twisted alleyways on either side of the main road.

"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," he said.

"A short person like me could not even breathe," a female eye-witness said, adding that she had survived as she was at the edge of the alleyway while "people in the middle suffered the most."

The stampede took place in a narrow, sloping alley near the Hamilton Hotel in Itaewon.

This resulted in "other people screaming and falling down like dominoes," the Twitter user with the handle "jkaesthet1c" wrote.

Some survivors claimed that nearby stores and establishments on the alleyway had blocked people from coming in to escape the crush.

Faced with a huge number of victims, the first emergency responders were asking passers-by to administer first aid and perform CPR on victims in the streets, just next to the chaos.

Dazed passers-by sat on the sidewalk, checking their phones. Others comforted themselves, hugging each other.

South Korea's President Yoon Suk-yeol, who declared a period of national morning in a televised address, visited the site of the accident and spoke to police and other officials.

"I've been to a lot of Halloween parties in Korea," he said, adding: "I never thought that something like this could happen in Korea, especially in Itaewon."

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Originally published as Scenes of horror in Seoul after Halloween stampede