hankyoreh

A framed letter to victims of the Itaewon crowd crush sits among flowers in a memorial space outside Exit 1 of Itaewon Station on Nov. 2. (Kang Chang-kwang/The Hankyoreh)

More and more evidence is emerging to suggest that the South Korean government missed numerous opportunities to prevent the deaths of 156 people in the crowd crush that occurred in Seoul’s Itaewon neighborhood last Saturday.

With revelations that the police leadership only received its first report on the situation five hours after the first reports to the 112 emergency service number from callers voicing fears that people might be “crushed to death,” the police are likely to come under fire from the public for the effective collapse of their control tower when they should have been taking action to protect safety and lives.

It has been confirmed that at the time of the tragedy, Lee Im-jae, the chief of the Yongsan Police Station, was busy controlling an assembly held near the presidential office — also in the Yongsan District — by demonstrators calling for President Yoon Suk-yeol to step down. Amid this breakdown in the police leadership’s decision-making capabilities, they ended up missing a crucial window to avert the disaster.

Police announced Wednesday that Yoon Hee-keun, the commissioner general of the Korean National Police Agency, received his first report on the Itaewon tragedy by mobile phone from the agency’s first situation officer past midnight on Sunday at 12:14 am. This was an hour and 59 minutes after 10:15 pm, when the National Fire Agency said it received its first report — and five hours and 40 minutes after 6:34 pm, when the police’s 112 emergency center received its first call about the dangerous situation in Itaewon.

Kim Gwang-ho, the commissioner of the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency (SMPA), had received a report on the situation by mobile phone from Lee Im-jae 38 minutes earlier, at 11:36 pm on Saturday night.

At 4 pm the same day, a “nationwide candlelight march for a special prosecutor’s investigation of first lady Kim Keon-hee and the resignation of Yoon Suk-yeol” took place at Samgakji Station in Seoul. Organized by an association of progressive groups calling themselves Candlelight Victory Action for Change, the march was being held near the presidential office, around 2 kilometers away from where the tragedy would occur.

While the Yongsan Police Station chief with jurisdiction over the neighborhood was directing security for a rally that ended around 9 pm, innocent people’s lives were in danger in Itaewon.

On Tuesday, Yoon Hee-keun announced plans to “resolutely investigate” the situation. But while a small number of police officers were working desperately on the ground to rescue victims, the “control tower” with full authority to deploy a police presence was not operating at all.

In the meantime, signs of the impending catastrophe were being ignored.

The initial concerns about Itaewon’s first “mask-free” Halloween in years were voiced from within the police organization. Three days before the incident, the Yongsan Police Station’s information office submitted a report to SMPA predicting “around 100,000 people attending the Itaewon Halloween festivities” and voicing concerns about of “pedestrians entering traffic, traffic issues, drug- and sex-related crimes, and violence.”

After the details came to light, the SMPA said that “scale and issues at this level are ordinarily expected.”

The institutions with a legal obligation to manage disaster situations — the Ministry of the Interior and Safety, the city of Seoul, and Yongsan District — all adopted a hands-off approach. They offered the irresponsible excuse that the event in Itaewon “does not have any organizers.”

On Oct. 26, three days ahead of the early Halloween festivities, a four-way roundtable was held by the Itaewon Special Tourist Zone Association (a merchants’ group), officials from the Yongsan Police Station and Yongsan District Office, and the stationmaster at Itaewon Station. But no safety measures for dealing with crowds were developed at the meeting.

After the tragedy, the police claimed that the Tourist Zone Organization had voiced “opposition to on-site controls,” but the organization told the Hankyoreh that it had “merely expressed concerns about cars blocking the road” and “pleaded for efforts to prevent safety issues.”

Desperate appeals for help were also ignored. On the day of the tragedy, the 112 emergency center received calls from 11 people voicing fears of a crush, the first of them coming at 6:34 pm. But the police only deemed it necessary to send officers to the scene for four of the 11 calls.

Five calls received between 9:07 and 10:11 pm were classified as “code 0” or “code 1” — requiring emergency mobilization — but none of them went any farther than counseling. Multiple survivors confirmed that people’s lives were already in danger at the scene during this time.

Transportation measures in the immediate wake of the crush were also fumbled.

Soonchunhyang University Hospital in the nearby Hannam neighborhood descended into chaos early in the morning on Sunday when 82 victims from the crush were brought there all at once, including many who had gone into cardiac arrest. After the window of opportunity to save their lives had passed, even the final journey of these victims turned into pandemonium.

By Lee Woo-yun, staff reporter; Jang Na-rye, staff reporter

Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]