South Korea mourns the victims of the Halloween stampede.

In South Korea, people gathered on Monday at monuments to remember the 154 people who died in a stampede during Halloween festivities as the government was under fire for poor crowd management.

Police said on Monday that they had formed a task team to look into the precise cause of the tragic crush, obtaining CCTV from nearby establishments in Seoul’s well-known Itaewon neighborhood and speaking with scores of witnesses.

However, South Koreans grieved, prayed, and vented their anger at the government’ inability to stop the tragic loss of young life at an official shrine put up in the heart of Seoul to mourn the young dead.

Student Hwang Gyu-hyeon, 19, told AFP while sobbing and having difficulty speaking properly, “I am heartbroken by what happened, they were just trying to have a good time.” She went on to describe how the deaths of so many individuals her own age had touched her personally.

“I offer the victims my prayers. Despite the obvious warning indicators that were there earlier, I can’t believe this event occurred. To prepare for this multitude, nothing was done, the woman said.

The young victims must have been “happy and lively,” anxious to enjoy a night out without Covid restrictions for the first time in three years, according to Song Jung-hee, 69.

“This would not have occurred if only there had been enough police officers to preserve order,” she told AFP.

– Police missteps?

On Monday, calls for responsibility increased in the media and online as it seemed that crowd management and police may have failed.

Up to 100,000 individuals, largely in their teens and 20s and many of them dressed in Halloween costumes, had rushed into Itaewon’s narrow, twisting lanes, according to eyewitnesses. There was no crowd control and little security.

At a briefing on Monday, police said that they had sent 137 policemen to the event, a major increase over prior years.

However, according to local sources, many of the police officers were more concerned with drug usage than crowd management.

According to Hong Ki-hyun, head of the National Police Agency’s Public Order Management Bureau, “large-scale casualties will occur owing to the gathering of numerous people,” yet the police themselves confessed they had not anticipated this.

According to what Hong had been informed, the police officers on the site had not seen a dramatic increase in the throng.

According to professor Lee Young-ju of the University of Seoul’s Department of Fire and Disaster, the catastrophe “might have been managed or averted.”

However, no one took initial responsibility for this, therefore it was not handled.

Online rumors also circulated that police this year failed to effectively control the gathering, allowing too many revelers to gather near the subway station and in the passageway that served as the disaster’s focal point.

Twitter user @isakchoi312 stated, “I’ve lived in Itaewon for ten years and celebrated Halloween every year, but yesterday was by no means unusually packed compared to prior years.”