WHY WAS IT SO BAD?
Experts say the crowd crush could have been prevented with proper preparation, But they admit things have gotten more difficult after years of pandemic-related lockdowns.
“Everywhere in the world event organisers are struggling with the post COVID-19 crowd,” said Eric Kant, a crowd safety specialist who runs the Phase01 Crowd Management.
“A lot of visitors are new with partying, they are indeed very excited, and maybe do not understand risks very much,” he added.
Key risk factors for crowd surges are “unrestricted entry” of people into a small space, and “no ticket sales” which means organisers have no exact estimate of demand, experts say – all of which happened at Itaewon.
“This is a recipe for disaster in mass gatherings,” crowd safety expert Milad Haghani of the University of New South Wales told AFP.
Even for the Halloween event – a public gathering with no tickets – authorities could have been actively managing the situation to prevent overcrowding.
“On the day, this would mean monitoring the numbers, at the very least,” said John Drury, an expert on crowd psychology at the University of Sussex.
“It would also mean a public information campaign beforehand to discourage such large numbers attending.”
He warned that psychology studies show people actually seek out “objectively dangerous levels of density” at events, and organisers need to be aware of this risk.
WHO IS TO BLAME?
So far, no one has been held accountable, even as public anger flares at the government and police for their apparent lack of oversight.
Top-ranking officials have brushed off questions about taking responsibility, saying the priority is currently on helping the victims and dealing with the aftermath of the accident.
Much local criticism has focused on the police – but experts say they are not necessarily at fault.
“We should remember that the primary role of the police is generally not crowd management,” said Martyn Amos, a professor at Northumbria University who works on crowd simulation.
“It’s possible to manage an event largely using stewards, with the police there to ensure public order and to deal with criminal activity,” he told AFP.