At least 153 people, mostly teenagers, have died in a stampede as huge Halloween crowds surged into a narrow street in South Korea’s capital, Seoul, in what has become the country’s worst disaster in years.
Emergency workers and pedestrians desperately performed CPR on people lying in the streets after the crush in the capital’s nightlife district of Itaewon overnight.
At least 82 people are believed to be injured and were rushed to the hospital. Officials fear the death toll could rise further.
Those killed or hurt were mostly teens and people in their twenties, according to Choi Seong-beom, chief of Seoul‘s Yongsan fire department.
The dead included 19 foreigners, he said, whose nationalities weren’t immediately released.
South Korean president Yoon Suk-Yeol has declared a national mourning period today as reactions of shock and condolences pour in from the rest of the world.
An estimated 100,000 people had gathered in Itaewon for the country’s biggest outdoor Halloween festivities since the pandemic began and strict rules on gatherings were enforced.
