Itaewon crush: Shock and anger as Seoul grieves its young

On a agleam and cloudless October afternoon, Lee Insook marched into a grassy tract successful the mediate of Seoul, sat down, and began to wail.

Clutching a handmade motion that said "I'm truthful sorry, guys", she directed her piercing cries astatine a ample signifier covered successful flowers - a nationalist altar honouring the galore young lives mislaid successful Saturday night's Itaewon crush.

She was 1 of thousands of Seoul residents who flocked to the altar astatine City Hall connected Monday, arsenic the superior struggled with grief and choler implicit the catastrophe - the worst the state has seen since 2014, erstwhile the Sewol ferry sank, sidesplitting much than 300 people.

Solemnly, they queued up - families with young children, bureau workers, housewives and retirees. Organisers handed retired stalks of achromatic chrysanthemums, a awesome of grief successful South Korea, which the mourners laid astatine the altar with heavy bows.

Some murmured prayers. Others cried.

A fewer kilometres distant astatine the country of the catastrophe successful Itaewon, hundreds besides gathered to laic bouquets of chrysanthemums. Among them were tiny bottles of soju, a fashionable alcoholic drink. It was an offering to the dormant truthful that their spirits could bask 1 past drink.

Jung Chankyung, a housewife from Gimpo, a neighbourhood extracurricular Seoul, travelled much than an hr to scope the bosom of the superior to wage her respects.

Watching scenes of the calamity connected the quality "just felt unreal, truthful heartbreaking and shocking", she said, her eyes brimming with tears. "I called my children to marque definite they were safe."

Many of those who turned up astatine City Hall were young - successful their 20s, similar Kim Min-jeong.

"It's rather surprising. I consciousness truly bittersweet due to the fact that the victims are my age, truthful galore are women too. I deliberation a deficiency of power astir apt caused [this]," she said.

Of the 154 who died, 98 were women and 56 were men. There is speculation that women died successful greater numbers due to the fact that they are smaller and recovered it harder to musculus their mode up to respire oregon marque their mode retired of the crowd.

For Koo Jaehoon, it was a adjacent call. The 29-year-old Itaewon regular wanted to caput down determination to enactment connected Saturday night, but decided against it astatine the past infinitesimal erstwhile helium heard it was getting crowded.

"I don't consciousness lucky. I consciousness sad… really I person visited the alley galore times, it was wherever I met friends, smoked, talked and waited successful enactment [to get into pubs].

"If there's idiosyncratic responsible, this idiosyncratic indispensable beryllium punished. But I don't privation radical to statement the deficiency of constabulary unit and deficiency of nationalist bid close now… I privation radical to person the clip to grieve."

But others person begun asking questions. While it is not yet wide however the crush began, accusations person been levelled against the authorities, saying they could person done much to forestall what galore judge was an wholly avoidable disaster.

South Korean Prime Minister Han Duck-soo has promised a thorough probe to "make indispensable organization changes truthful that specified an mishap is not repeated".

But Korean media person pointed retired that conscionable 2 weeks earlier, a performance by K-pop superstars BTS successful the confederate metropolis of Busan attended by 55,000 fans was manned by 2,700 information officers. In contrast, lone 137 officers successful Seoul were deployed to Itaewon connected Saturday nighttime to negociate a assemblage that ran into thousands successful the archetypal mask-free Halloween lawsuit since Covid.

Authorities person said they deployed much radical this twelvemonth than they did for pre-Covid parties, and that they had to redirect a sizeable fig of officers elsewhere successful Seoul that nighttime to grip imaginable protests.

But circular the country from City Hall, a section labour national has wasted nary clip successful making their point. Prominent achromatic banners read: "The close to beryllium harmless is the basal close of each citizens. There is nary different worth to beryllium prioritised than the lives of radical and their safety."

On the grassy field, Lee Insook was livid. "This is simply a quality disaster, it wouldn't person happened if the authorities had controlled nationalist order. The authorities is liable for this. The older procreation is besides responsible, they person voted wrongly.

"It's unbelievable this could person happened present successful South Korea, a developed country… I americium present due to the fact that each South Korean young radical should unrecorded successful a safe, just and peaceful place," said Lee Insook, who's a grandmother.

Powered by fury, her grief was contagious - arsenic she wailed, an older pistillate adjacent her started sobbing spontaneously, past bowed profoundly to her.

She went to comfortableness Lee Insook, arsenic did a antheral who held her shoulder. But Lee Insook angrily shook them disconnected - she needed to grieve, she insisted.

"It's our responsibility they died!" she cried out.