Grieving parents bury children killed in South Korea’s deadly Halloween disaster
SEOUL: "Dad, I'm going out" were the last words Jung Hae-moon heard his daughter utter, at the end of a chat they had on the telephone on Saturday as she turned down an invitation to dinner.
Hours later, 30-year-old Jung Joo-hee was among 156 people, most of them in their teens and twenties, killed in the South Korean capital as they celebrated Halloween free of Covid restrictions for the first time in three years.
On Thursday, the young woman's family buried her ashes in a peaceful family plot outside Seoul, with a planted sapling and bouquets by her grave stone, in a sombre ceremony of prayers and tears.
"Rest well. Mum and dad will come see you," Jung Hae-moon said as the family stood by, together with his daughter's pet poodle.
As news of the disaster unfolded on Saturday, Jung Hae-moon dashed to Itaewon, a district of narrow streets full of bars and boutiques, to be met with chaos as distraught youngsters milled about in their Halloween costumes as lights flashed from rows of ambulances.
More than 12 hours later, he found Joo-hee in a morgue, lifeless, swollen and bruised.
Joo-hee's mother, Lee Hyo-sook, said her daughter was a delight, a best friend who loved animals and wine.
"The space she leaves is too big. The place she left in the family is too much, the emptiness," Lee told Reuters after the funeral, speaking at a cafe that Joo-hee ran.
The cafe is closed with a sign in black reading: "In mourning."
The anguish of Joo-hee's family is being felt by all of the 156 bereaved families as a traditional three-day wake comes to an end and their loved-one is placed in a coffin to be viewed for the last time before burial or cremation.
Their grief is being shared by the county as a whole as it struggles to come to terms with the disaster that ended so many young lives as they ventured out for what should have been an evening of fun.
Of the 156 dead, 101 were female, the government said.
Another grieving father, Song Jae-woong, said his daughter, Young-ju, 24, was a gentle soul who was quick to befriend classmates, more than 200 of whom came to her funeral.
Young-ju had dreamed of becoming an actress, her father said, speaking at a funeral home in Seoul.
"Then, things turned out like this," Song said.
"Her friends told me that my daughter had a habit of seeking out and befriending anyone. She had a kind soul."
"It's all over now."
'IMPOSSIBLE'
Some families had no idea their children were even in the crowd in the Itaewon entertainment district on Saturday evening.
"I had no idea she was there. It was impossible, I couldn't believe it," Lim's father said at a funeral home as he and his family observed funeral rites.
The father asked that he and his daughter be identified by just their family name, Lim.
The man usually lives abroad and had not seen their only child for three years as Covid disrupted travel. He first heard of the disaster when an acquaintance sent him a text message about it, with neither knowing the daughter was caught up in it.
Struggling with grief, he pulled out his telephone to show the message.
"She was so creative and pretty," the man said, adding that he had often strolled with his daughter through Itaewon. He used to park their car at the Hamilton Hotel next to the alley where Lim died.
"I know that street very well."
For many parents, anger is seething with the grief.
They wonder why their children were celebrating Halloween in the first place, a totally foreign concept for older Koreans.
But the biggest question for many of those mourning their children is why no safety measures were enforced to control the crowd.
"Even before this, I thought this could result in some sort of accident," Song said. --REUTERS
South Korea moved to calm public outrage on Tuesday (Nov 1) over a Halloween party crush that killed more than 150 people, most of them young, promising a speedy and intensive inquiry and calling for tough new safety measures to prevent similar disasters.
South Koreans flocked to memorials on Monday to pay tribute to victims who were killed in a crowd crush during Halloween celebrations in Seoul's Itaewon on Saturday. South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol and Prime Minister Han Duck-soo were also among those who paid tribute to those who died. (Photo: AFP)
South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol and his wife Kim Keon-hee paying tribute to victims who were killed in a crowd crush in Seoul on Saturday night. (Photo: Yonhap via AP)
South Korean Prime Minister Han Duck-soo paying tribute to victims who were killed in a crowd crush in Seoul on Saturday night. (Photo: AP)
Flowers and a South Korean flag are placed at a makeshift memorial outside the Itaewon subway station. (Photo: AFP/Anthony Wallace)
A man leaves a message at a makeshift memorial outside the Itaewon subway station. (Photo: AFP/Anthony Wallace)
Flowers and a message are seen in the district of Itaewon in Seoul on Oct 30, 2022, in memory of those who died in a Halloween stampede. (Photo: AFP/Anthony Wallace)
A man pours a glass of an alcoholic beverage, in tribute to those who were killed in a Halloween stampede late on Oct 29, in the district of Itaewon in Seoul. (Photo: AFP/Anthony Wallace)
Commuters exit the Itaewon subway station in the district of Itaewon in Seoul on Oct 30, 2022, while flowers and tributes are seen outside in memory of those who died in a Halloween stampede late on Oct 29. (Photo: AFP/Anthony Wallace)
A man prepares to lay flowers, in memory of those who died in a Halloween stampede late on Oct 29, at a makeshift memorial outside the Itaewon subway station. (Photo: AFP/Anthony Wallace)
A man reacts as he squats next to a makeshift memorial outside the Itaewon subway station. (Photo: AFP/Anthony Wallace)
A policeman stands guard next to flowers laid at the alley, in which a stampede took place during Halloween celebrations late on Oct 29, in the district of Itaewon in Seoul. (Photo: AFP/Anthony Wallace)
South Korean national flags flutter at half-mast at the government complex in Seoul on Oct 30, 2022, after the deadly Halloween stampede in the capital's popular Itaewon district. (Photo: AFP/Jung Yeon-je)
After South Korean Halloween crush, families seek missing, plan funerals
SEOUL — In tears, Philomene Aby's hands shook as she asked workers at a South Korean community centre for any news of her 22-year-old son, missing in the wake of a crowd surge in Seoul that left at least 151 people dead on Saturday (Oct 29).
Her son, Masela, went to work at a club in the city's Itaewon area around 6pm on Saturday. That was the last time Aby, a Seoul resident from the Ivory Coast, saw him.
"I called his number but... he wasn't answering," Aby told Reuters while standing in the Hannam-dong Community Service Center, which became a makeshift missing persons facility in the wake of the disaster.
Bureaucrats who typically handle birth certificates or housing registrations sought to help hundreds of distraught people seeking details of their relatives.
Officers at the centre manned emergency phone lines, taking hundreds of frantic calls to find missing people.
One person broke down and kneeled on the floor after speaking to some officials at the centre, according to a Reuters witness. A white board in the main office lists updated numbers of calls every hour, totalling more than 4,100 since 5.30am on Sunday.
"No one is telling me the truth," said Aby, who has lived in Seoul with her son for 18 years. With no sign of news about the son, Aby left the centre for the Ivory Coast embassy.
An official at the funeral home said there were at least two bodies from the incident at the facility on Sunday.
They both appeared to have been from outside of Seoul, leading to a delay in family members being able to retrieve the remains, the official said.
"The families need to get this certificate from the police, then we can release the bodies to the families," the official said.
"If the family would want to find out the cause of the death, then they could request an autopsy, but for these bodies, the cause of death seems pretty clear to me."
An official from the Seoul Metropolitan Government told the family of the young woman that plans for supporting victims' families were still being discussed.
"It's sad and difficult to tell you this that support plans for the victims' families have not been decided yet," the official said.
"If the family is transferring the body to their hometown to hold the funeral, please do what you wish to do."
This coming so soon after the football stampede in Indonesia, thought other countries would have learnt from it and taken steps to prevent another tragedy of such magnitude from happening. :(
Youngsters typically possess that sense of invulnerability, hence diving headfirst into situations that appear scary yet exciting at the same time yet not assuming the worst may happen. Used to feel the same way and do things that I for sure wouldn’t try these days.
The night of Halloween festivities in a Seoul neighborhood turned deadly late Saturday, as crowds began to push forward into a narrow, downhill alley.
At least 151 people had died -- of whom 97 were women, and 19 non-Korean nationals -- from the crowd surge as of Sunday morning, according to the Seoul fire and disaster headquarters. The death toll may rise further, fire authorities said, with about two dozen people in critical condition and hundreds still remaining unaccounted for.
Seoul officials urged families and friends to report Itaewon visitors as missing if they could not be reached. More than 3,000 such missing person reports have been filed to date, they said.
Police estimate some 100,000 people gathered in Itaewon, a district in central Seoul known for its nightlife, on Saturday. At around 10:40 p.m. the crowd surged into a narrow, uphill alley, leaving people stuck there for about an hour and a half. Among the huge crowds jammed into the alley, some people who could not get out were suffocated to death.
Rescue efforts continued into the night. Footage that has emerged shows first responders performing CPR on partiers unconscious on the bare ground while music blares from the bars and nightclubs.
Just a few blocks from Itaewon at around 3 a.m., people still dressed in costumes who were able to flee the horror were trying to grab a cab.
“I had no idea what was going on until the police came,” said a woman in her mid-20s. “I was totally on the other side of the street. I learned about what happened as the police told us to leave.”
Survivors who sustained injuries were sent to different hospitals all across the city after emergency rooms of the nearest hospitals reached capacity. Medics warned those who were not immediately hurt to seek medical attention in case of symptoms such as a stomachache.
The bodies of some of the deceased had to be placed in gyms that were turned into emergency morgues while forensic officers worked to identify them.
In an address to the nation on Sunday, President Yoon Suk-yeol called the crowd crush the night before a “tragedy, and a disaster that should not have happened.”
He said that South Korea would go into national mourning until the country recovers from the tragic incident.
Sending prayers for the victims and their families, he vowed to strengthen initiatives to prevent a repetition and in the meantime deliver support for survivors.
Grieving parents bury children killed in South Korea’s deadly Halloween disaster
SEOUL: "Dad, I'm going out" were the last words Jung Hae-moon heard his daughter utter, at the end of a chat they had on the telephone on Saturday as she turned down an invitation to dinner.
Hours later, 30-year-old Jung Joo-hee was among 156 people, most of them in their teens and twenties, killed in the South Korean capital as they celebrated Halloween free of Covid restrictions for the first time in three years.
On Thursday, the young woman's family buried her ashes in a peaceful family plot outside Seoul, with a planted sapling and bouquets by her grave stone, in a sombre ceremony of prayers and tears.
"Rest well. Mum and dad will come see you," Jung Hae-moon said as the family stood by, together with his daughter's pet poodle.
As news of the disaster unfolded on Saturday, Jung Hae-moon dashed to Itaewon, a district of narrow streets full of bars and boutiques, to be met with chaos as distraught youngsters milled about in their Halloween costumes as lights flashed from rows of ambulances.
More than 12 hours later, he found Joo-hee in a morgue, lifeless, swollen and bruised.
Joo-hee's mother, Lee Hyo-sook, said her daughter was a delight, a best friend who loved animals and wine.
"The space she leaves is too big. The place she left in the family is too much, the emptiness," Lee told Reuters after the funeral, speaking at a cafe that Joo-hee ran.
The cafe is closed with a sign in black reading: "In mourning."
The anguish of Joo-hee's family is being felt by all of the 156 bereaved families as a traditional three-day wake comes to an end and their loved-one is placed in a coffin to be viewed for the last time before burial or cremation.
Their grief is being shared by the county as a whole as it struggles to come to terms with the disaster that ended so many young lives as they ventured out for what should have been an evening of fun.
Of the 156 dead, 101 were female, the government said.
Another grieving father, Song Jae-woong, said his daughter, Young-ju, 24, was a gentle soul who was quick to befriend classmates, more than 200 of whom came to her funeral.
Young-ju had dreamed of becoming an actress, her father said, speaking at a funeral home in Seoul.
"Then, things turned out like this," Song said.
"Her friends told me that my daughter had a habit of seeking out and befriending anyone. She had a kind soul."
"It's all over now."
'IMPOSSIBLE'
Some families had no idea their children were even in the crowd in the Itaewon entertainment district on Saturday evening.
"I had no idea she was there. It was impossible, I couldn't believe it," Lim's father said at a funeral home as he and his family observed funeral rites.
The father asked that he and his daughter be identified by just their family name, Lim.
The man usually lives abroad and had not seen their only child for three years as Covid disrupted travel. He first heard of the disaster when an acquaintance sent him a text message about it, with neither knowing the daughter was caught up in it.
Struggling with grief, he pulled out his telephone to show the message.
"She was so creative and pretty," the man said, adding that he had often strolled with his daughter through Itaewon. He used to park their car at the Hamilton Hotel next to the alley where Lim died.
"I know that street very well."
For many parents, anger is seething with the grief.
They wonder why their children were celebrating Halloween in the first place, a totally foreign concept for older Koreans.
But the biggest question for many of those mourning their children is why no safety measures were enforced to control the crowd.
"Even before this, I thought this could result in some sort of accident," Song said. --REUTERS
South Korea moved to calm public outrage on Tuesday (Nov 1) over a Halloween party crush that killed more than 150 people, most of them young, promising a speedy and intensive inquiry and calling for tough new safety measures to prevent similar disasters.
South Koreans flocked to memorials on Monday to pay tribute to victims who were killed in a crowd crush during Halloween celebrations in Seoul's Itaewon on Saturday. South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol and Prime Minister Han Duck-soo were also among those who paid tribute to those who died. (Photo: AFP)
South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol and his wife Kim Keon-hee paying tribute to victims who were killed in a crowd crush in Seoul on Saturday night. (Photo: Yonhap via AP)
South Korean Prime Minister Han Duck-soo paying tribute to victims who were killed in a crowd crush in Seoul on Saturday night. (Photo: AP)
Aussie chiobu was among those who uplorried, RIP.
Flowers and a South Korean flag are placed at a makeshift memorial outside the Itaewon subway station. (Photo: AFP/Anthony Wallace)
A man leaves a message at a makeshift memorial outside the Itaewon subway station. (Photo: AFP/Anthony Wallace)
Flowers and a message are seen in the district of Itaewon in Seoul on Oct 30, 2022, in memory of those who died in a Halloween stampede. (Photo: AFP/Anthony Wallace)
A man pours a glass of an alcoholic beverage, in tribute to those who were killed in a Halloween stampede late on Oct 29, in the district of Itaewon in Seoul. (Photo: AFP/Anthony Wallace)
Commuters exit the Itaewon subway station in the district of Itaewon in Seoul on Oct 30, 2022, while flowers and tributes are seen outside in memory of those who died in a Halloween stampede late on Oct 29. (Photo: AFP/Anthony Wallace)
A man prepares to lay flowers, in memory of those who died in a Halloween stampede late on Oct 29, at a makeshift memorial outside the Itaewon subway station. (Photo: AFP/Anthony Wallace)
A man reacts as he squats next to a makeshift memorial outside the Itaewon subway station. (Photo: AFP/Anthony Wallace)
A policeman stands guard next to flowers laid at the alley, in which a stampede took place during Halloween celebrations late on Oct 29, in the district of Itaewon in Seoul. (Photo: AFP/Anthony Wallace)
South Korean national flags flutter at half-mast at the government complex in Seoul on Oct 30, 2022, after the deadly Halloween stampede in the capital's popular Itaewon district. (Photo: AFP/Jung Yeon-je)
After South Korean Halloween crush, families seek missing, plan funerals
SEOUL — In tears, Philomene Aby's hands shook as she asked workers at a South Korean community centre for any news of her 22-year-old son, missing in the wake of a crowd surge in Seoul that left at least 151 people dead on Saturday (Oct 29).
Her son, Masela, went to work at a club in the city's Itaewon area around 6pm on Saturday. That was the last time Aby, a Seoul resident from the Ivory Coast, saw him.
"I called his number but... he wasn't answering," Aby told Reuters while standing in the Hannam-dong Community Service Center, which became a makeshift missing persons facility in the wake of the disaster.
Bureaucrats who typically handle birth certificates or housing registrations sought to help hundreds of distraught people seeking details of their relatives.
Officers at the centre manned emergency phone lines, taking hundreds of frantic calls to find missing people.
One person broke down and kneeled on the floor after speaking to some officials at the centre, according to a Reuters witness. A white board in the main office lists updated numbers of calls every hour, totalling more than 4,100 since 5.30am on Sunday.
"No one is telling me the truth," said Aby, who has lived in Seoul with her son for 18 years. With no sign of news about the son, Aby left the centre for the Ivory Coast embassy.
An official at the funeral home said there were at least two bodies from the incident at the facility on Sunday.
They both appeared to have been from outside of Seoul, leading to a delay in family members being able to retrieve the remains, the official said.
"The families need to get this certificate from the police, then we can release the bodies to the families," the official said.
"If the family would want to find out the cause of the death, then they could request an autopsy, but for these bodies, the cause of death seems pretty clear to me."
An official from the Seoul Metropolitan Government told the family of the young woman that plans for supporting victims' families were still being discussed.
"It's sad and difficult to tell you this that support plans for the victims' families have not been decided yet," the official said.
"If the family is transferring the body to their hometown to hold the funeral, please do what you wish to do."
https://www.todayonline.com/world/after-south-korean-halloween-crush-families-seek-missing-plan-funerals-2032196
In Shin Min News Daily News:
Source:
This coming so soon after the football stampede in Indonesia, thought other countries would have learnt from it and taken steps to prevent another tragedy of such magnitude from happening. :(
Most of the dead were in their twenties with their whole lives ahead of them, jin tragic sia
What's Halloween without real horror? Very nice indeed ;)
Halloween turns deadly in Itaewon
The night of Halloween festivities in a Seoul neighborhood turned deadly late Saturday, as crowds began to push forward into a narrow, downhill alley.
At least 151 people had died -- of whom 97 were women, and 19 non-Korean nationals -- from the crowd surge as of Sunday morning, according to the Seoul fire and disaster headquarters. The death toll may rise further, fire authorities said, with about two dozen people in critical condition and hundreds still remaining unaccounted for.
Seoul officials urged families and friends to report Itaewon visitors as missing if they could not be reached. More than 3,000 such missing person reports have been filed to date, they said.
Police estimate some 100,000 people gathered in Itaewon, a district in central Seoul known for its nightlife, on Saturday. At around 10:40 p.m. the crowd surged into a narrow, uphill alley, leaving people stuck there for about an hour and a half. Among the huge crowds jammed into the alley, some people who could not get out were suffocated to death.
Rescue efforts continued into the night. Footage that has emerged shows first responders performing CPR on partiers unconscious on the bare ground while music blares from the bars and nightclubs.
Just a few blocks from Itaewon at around 3 a.m., people still dressed in costumes who were able to flee the horror were trying to grab a cab.
“I had no idea what was going on until the police came,” said a woman in her mid-20s. “I was totally on the other side of the street. I learned about what happened as the police told us to leave.”
Survivors who sustained injuries were sent to different hospitals all across the city after emergency rooms of the nearest hospitals reached capacity. Medics warned those who were not immediately hurt to seek medical attention in case of symptoms such as a stomachache.
The bodies of some of the deceased had to be placed in gyms that were turned into emergency morgues while forensic officers worked to identify them.
In an address to the nation on Sunday, President Yoon Suk-yeol called the crowd crush the night before a “tragedy, and a disaster that should not have happened.”
He said that South Korea would go into national mourning until the country recovers from the tragic incident.
Sending prayers for the victims and their families, he vowed to strengthen initiatives to prevent a repetition and in the meantime deliver support for survivors.
http://koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20221030000240
Death sure works in mysterious ways.
*GASPS IN HORROR*