hankyoreh

wo people who lost four coworkers stand before a memorial space set up for victims of the Itaewon crowd crush outside Exit 1 of Itaewon Station on Nov. 3. (Kim Jung-hyo/The Hankyoreh)

The starting point for finding the truth about the deadly crowd crush in Seoul’s Itaewon neighborhood on Oct. 29 lies in discovering the details about the period of five hours and 40 minutes when the South Korean state was absent: from 6:34 pm, when the first calls about the gravity of the situation in Itaewon were made to the 112 emergency services number, to 12:14 am the following day, when the first report on the situation was made to National Police Agency Commissioner General Yoon Hee-keun, the figure tasked with preserving the public’s safety.

To date, there has been no full explanation about this period, when it might have been possible to prevent the deaths of the 156 victims, or at least some of them. The Hankyoreh identified details that had been learned as of Nov. 3, as well as others that still need to come to light.

The numerous calls made to 112 from Itaewon on the day of the tragedy were sent to the 112 public security situation office of the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency (SMPA). Senior Superintendent Ryu Mi-jin, the head of the SMPA’s personnel education department, was in charge of the situation office on the day in question, but she reportedly remained in her office at the time rather than in the situation room.

Ryu returned to her place at 11:39 pm on Oct. 29 — an hour and 24 minutes after the situation in Itaewon turned deadly.

“The situation officer at the time could have taken discretionary measures such as sending more police to Itaewon or reporting directly to the National Police Agency commissioner general,” commented one police official. According to this explanation, Ryu’s absence may have been the reason that more police were not sent in and the situation was not reported on to the nation’s top cop.

On Thursday, the SMPA’s special inspection team reportedly made the decision to commission an investigation of Ryu by the special investigation team.

Major questions remain about how the absence of one person prevented the SMPA as a whole from perceiving the severity of the situation in Itaewon. At least 11 calls about the risk of a crowd crush had been made to 112 as of 10:15 pm, when the situation turned deadly, and 87 reports to 112 came from the Itaewon area over the 45 minutes between then and 11 pm.

It was not until 11:36 pm that SMPA chief Kim Gwang-ho first became aware of the situation. Before that, the reports to the SMPA about the desperate situation that was unfolding were effectively ignored.

The calls received by the SMPA were reported to the Yongsan Police Station and Itaewon patrol box for an on-site response. The contents of the 112 transcripts made public by the police on Nov. 1, as well as the “resolution” of them, were full of expressions that come across as incomprehensible in light of the scale of the tragedy.

In the case of the first call made at 6:34 pm, the record states it was resolved by “forcible dispersing” an hour and 37 minutes later at 8:11 pm. Afterwards, the record includes references to the calls being resolved by “informing about the deployment of offices,” “controlling citizens in the vicinity” and “explaining to the caller about the situation on the ground.”

The wording gives the impression that the dangers were properly resolved, or that the situation was peaceful enough not to require police to be sent to the scene.

To date, the police have not explained how exactly they “controlled” the scene or resolved the issues cited in the calls. But the Yongsan Police Station said, “There were too many people there to observe things clearly.”

“When they went out in response to several cases, they would resolve one incident and tell the next caller ‘They’ve moved to a different location, so it’s all right’ and resolve it that way. But those kinds of things were not included in the on-site response, so it was listed as having been ‘resolved after explaining the situation,’” it explained. The account suggests that the situation could not be controlled because of the overwhelming size of the crowds compared with the police presence.