Here are some details about the crowd surge and stampede at a Halloween event in Seoul's popular Itaewon nightlife district that killed more than 150 people.
Onlookers, police and paramedics gather where dozens of people suffered cardiac arrest after thousands crowded into narrow streets in the popular nightlife district of Itaewon in Seoul, South Korea on October 30, 2022 to celebrate Halloween.
"People couldn't move forward and were pushing and pushing, and it was a steep hill so people were falling on top of each other, collapsing on top of each other," eyewitness Jarmil Taylor, 40, told AFP. Eye-witnesses also described seeing people falling and getting trapped by the crowd before being trampled and crushed.
In documents posted two days before the event, the police said they only planned to have 200 officers present for the Itaewon Halloween event."This is a man-made disaster prompted by a lack of awareness about safety," said Shin Dong-min, a professor at the Korea National University of Transportation.