Amid the Halloween festivities in the Itaewon neighborhood of Seoul, South Korea, a crowd crush occurred on October 29, 2022. With nearly 100,000 people out attending the evening celebrations, nearly 153 individuals died in the surge.
People began calling the nearby police station to inform them of the risk of crowd crush as early as 6:34pm the night of the disaster, and eleven calls were made in the following four hours for police rescue efforts. There were less than 150 deployed police officers initially at the site, making it extremely difficult to rescue victims in the crowd.
In a case study, Chhetri lays out how inadequate planning, poor crowd control, lack of police officers, and insufficient risk assessment were the main causes of this disaster. With these shortcomings, authorities were unable to take proper action when they became aware of the emergency. Chhetri emphasizes that effective communication networks and well trained rescuers are essential for properly responding to similar emergencies in the future.