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(ATTENTION: ADD forensic examination in paragraphs 20-21) By Park Boram
SEOUL, Oct. 31 (Yonhap) — White flowers of mourning and gifts of condolences were placed and operations were suspended with messages of condolence Monday in Seoul’s Itaewon district, as South Korea mourned the country’s deadliest crowd in the community amid introspection about what went wrong. .
Mourning altars laden with white chrysanthemums were also opened across the country to allow others to burn incense and pay tribute to those killed in Saturday night’s crash that left at least 154 dead, a high in their twenties, and another 33 seriously injured.
President Yoon Suk-yeol, one of the first to pay tribute to the victims.
Dressed in black, Yoon and First Lady Kim Keon-hee visited an altar set up in Seoul Square at City Hall, laid flowers and bowed their heads in silent prayer.
Prime Minister Han Duck-so and Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon paid tribute to the altar later.
Tragedy struck Saturday night when a large crowd of Halloween revelers piled up in a narrow 3. 2-meter-wide alley in Seoul’s Itaewon entertainment district. .
It marked the deadliest mass crash in South Korean history and the worst crisis the country has experienced since 2014, when the Sewol ferry sank in waters off the southern coast and killed 304 people, most of them high school students.
Two-thirds of the victims, or 103 people, were in their twenties, and most of those killed were 98-year-old women, largely because of what experts say is their smaller body and fewer muscles to cope with overwhelming pressure. .
People began placing bouquets of flowers, white flowers of mourning and gifts of condolences, such as bottles of sweets and soju, near the crash scene in Itaewon on Sunday, and many visited the site to mourn and pay tribute to the victims.
“I have come to pray for the sick and their families,” a 29-year-old citizen surnamed Yoon told Yonhap news agency after paying tribute Sunday night in the neighborhood. “I hope other people can find hope in the midst of despair. “
After a long prayer at an altar set up in the Jeju Island provincial government building, Kim So-hee, a 28-year-old Jeju government employee, said, “I am heartbroken as if one of my friends has died, because most of the sick were about my age. “
Many business owners in the Itaewon neighborhood, as well as restaurants, shoe stores and coffee shop operators, joined the mourning by posting messages of condolences for the victims. Many of them will remain closed until the last day of national mourning on Saturday.
“We, the investors of Itaewon, were incredibly shocked and feel guilty about the tragedy,” a bakery owner, nicknamed Oh, told Yonhap news agency, adding that many used other tactics to grieve.
The owner of the bakery signed up for the closure of the business until Saturday and supplied loose rolls and coffee to the police and paramedics on duty in the neighborhood.
The 26 foreign patients come with five from Iran, 4 from China and Russia, two from the United States, two from Japan and one each from France, Australia, Norway, Austria, Vietnam, Thailand, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Sri Lanka, the officials said. .
Among the dead were a high school student and five top academics, all from Seoul, the Education Ministry said. Five other high school students and the best were injured and two of them were being treated in hospitals.
A total of 116 others were injured.
At a crisis reaction assembly on Monday, the government will hand out 20 million won ($14,010) in payment to each of the deceased victims, plus monetary assistance of up to 15 million won to cover funeral expenses.
Survivors will also get reimbursed between five and 10 million won, depending on the severity of the injuries they sustained, said Kim Sung-ho, a senior Interior Ministry official.
The precise cause of the crushing of the crowd is under investigation. The National Forensic Service and police investigators examined the crash for about two hours on Monday.
During the forensic examination, which aims to perceive why and how the crowd developed, investigators answered questions from journalists.
On Saturday night, tens of thousands of other people were visiting the Itaewon area, known for its trendy nightlife and fine dining, for Halloween festivities without social distancing rules, adding mask rules, within 3 years.
The accident is a sloping alley where about six adults can pass slightly at a time.
Police said a 475-member special investigation team interviewed 44 eyewitnesses and received 54 surveillance camera photographs from the crash scene to the cause of the fatal crash, and so far no criminal acts have been detected.
Critics have raised doubts about whether the crisis could have been avoided.
Some say the Seoul city government, the Yongsan district workplace to which Itaewon belongs, and the police have taken sufficient accident prevention measures in anticipation of a record Halloween crowd, while others say the crisis was beyond the realm of prediction.
A crowd of nearly 100,000 people was expected to flock to the nightlife district on Saturday.
Many say there was some sort of early caution signal, as eyewitnesses said on social media that other people were led through the crowd and fell into the same alley the night before, but were not injured after others stopped moving.
Witnesses also said it was already difficult to walk around Itaewon on Friday because of the large crowds.
However, despite obvious cautionary signs, the Seoul city government does not appear to have taken express steps in advance to protect Halloween-related injuries.
Yongsan District held an emergency assembly on Thursday under the supervision of its deputy director to discuss Halloween-related protective measures for the Itaewon area, but the conversation reportedly focused on COVID-19 quarantine measures, inspection of facilities, and protection of food in eating places.
The community said around 150 staff in 28 groups had been deployed to Itaewon from Thursday to Saturday, but it appears the numbers were not enough to deal with the tens of thousands of people.
Seoul police also said they deployed around two hundred officers to Itaewon on Saturday, though their tasks were primarily focused on cracking down on sex crimes, drugs and theft, rather than managing security.
Critics also pointed out that there has been a ban on cars on parts of Itewon’s major roads and that a collection area has been secured in advance.
pbr@yna. co. kr(END)
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