Crowd management experts explain the factors that enabled Seoul’s deadly crowd crush
A Halloween festival in Seoul, South Korea, resulted in a deadly crush on October 29. That Saturday night, tens of thousands of people converged on Itaewon—a district of the city that is known for its nightlife—until the crowd was so compact in many areas that people were unable to move. The tight conditions led to a dangerous surge of people through the sloping streets of Itaewon—especially one narrow alleyway. More than 150 people died, and more than 170 were injured.
Still, prior to any full-scale investigation, Asgary notes a few key factors that likely led the Seoul gathering to turn deadly. The crowd’s tremendous size was an obvious issue—an estimated 100,000 people converged on Itaewon—but so was its motion. “In this case, we are talking about a crowd that is not standing or staying in one place,” Asgary says. “This is a dynamic crowd, moving in the space in different directions, especially in the area that was subject to this incident.
Still, all these factors could have been overcome with proper crowd management, according to Asgary and Hutton—but this particular event had minimal oversight, they say. “I think there was no consideration that this was [one of] the first [times] that young people would be out en masse since COVID restrictions were lifted in South Korea,” Hutton says.
“We are social creatures,” Asgary adds. “We do want to be together. We actually enjoy the crowd. There’s nothing wrong about that. However, we also should know that there are risks when the crowd forms, and these risks are coming from different angles and sources.” He says it’s the responsibility of everyone—governments, event organizers and the public—to consider those risks and prepare to respond.“In a moving crowd, the crowd becomes like a fluid,” Asgary says.
It’s also helpful to be aware of your own risk factors, he says. Children and lower-height people are more likely to be crushed in a crowd. And as most crowd crush deaths are the result of asphyxiation, people with respiratory ailments should be especially cautious.
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