By HYUNG-JIN KIM, Associated Press
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — When Kim Kap Soo watched live broadcasts of the harrowing Halloween party crush that killed greater than 150 people in Seoul last weekend, there was shock and sadness — but additionally the embarrassed realization that this wasn’t the primary time he’d seen South Korea suffer a devastating disaster consequently of official incompetence and safety failures.
“My heart is aching very much. We’re among the many world’s 10 largest economies, and I totally don’t understand how this may occur in our nation,” said Kim, 73, a retired environmental engineering researcher. “Our public insensitivity to safety is just too severe. We must always at all times watch out about every thing, but we don’t accomplish that, and I believe that’s the largest problem.”
The group crush Saturday in Itaewon, a preferred nightlife district, has caused an outpouring of public sympathy toward the dead, mostly of their 20s and 30s, and demands for accountability for the tragedy. But many also share a robust feeling of embarrassment and anger that their country, a cultural and economic powerhouse that has risen from war, poverty and dictatorships, still ignores safety and regulatory issues.
Similar crowd crushes have happened in other developed countries in recent times, however the death counts there have been much smaller than in Itaewon, where 156 people died and 187 were injured.
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There are growing questions here about why South Korea hasn’t learned its lessons because the 2014 sinking of the ferry Sewol, which killed 304 people — mostly teenagers on a college trip. That disaster also prompted national soul-searching on the country’s failure to implement safety and regulatory rules.
“Relating to public safety, I believe we aren’t a complicated nation in any respect, though we might need grown economically,” said Park You Nam, 60, who runs a jewellery shop in Seoul. “I feel really sorry and guilty for those young victims because all of us did not protect them.”
From K-pop superstars BTS and Netflix’s megahit drama “Squid Game” to Samsung-made smartphones and Hyundai cars, South Korea’s recent cultural and economic achievements have been remarkable. But there is a dark side to its breakneck rise from the intense poverty of the 1950 and 60s: Critics say basic safety practices, social safety nets and minority voices have been largely ignored.
Not much has modified because the ferry sinking, these critics say, citing a series of smaller deadly incidents akin to fires and boat accidents.
On Tuesday, President Yoon Suk Yeol acknowledged that South Korea lacks studies on crowd management and ordered officials to formulate effective crowd control methods based on high-tech resources akin to drones. Police also said they haven’t got guidelines to cope with crowd surges at events that don’t have any official organizers, just like the Halloween festivities in Itaewon.
Park Sangin, a professor at Seoul National University, said the Itaewon crush showed that South Koreans haven’t done much to enhance systems and policies to forestall similar man-made disasters just like the ferry sinking. He said South Koreans have focused as a substitute on finding, criticizing and punishing anyone responsible every time an incident occurs.
“For a rustic that has experienced many safety-related incidents, there must have been diverse studies and countermeasures to forestall their recurrences and that’s the responsibility of presidency officials and politicians,” Park said. “But they haven’t done so, and I believe it’s more essential to criticize them to get things modified.”
What exactly caused Saturday’s crush continues to be under investigation. However it happened when greater than 100,000 partiers clad in Halloween costumes and others packed Itaewon’s alleys. Police dispatched only 137 officers to the neighborhood, mostly with a mission to cope with possible crimes akin to narcotics use, not crowd control. Police also acknowledged Tuesday they’d received a few dozen emergency calls from residents about the approaching crowd surge but didn’t handle them effectively.
The disaster has left many South Koreans with feelings of trauma.
Witnesses said that folks fell on one another like dominos, screamed, suffered severe respiration difficulties and lost consciousness while crammed right into a sloped, narrow alley. TV footage showed people frantically giving CPR to victims lying motionless near a row of dead bodies covered by blue blankets.
“After I first saw such things on TV, I assumed they were happening abroad, not here,” said Kim Suk Hee, 40, an actual estate agent. “I used to be so stunned to learn that it was Itaewon, because I had actually planned to go there with my family for Halloween the following day. I still have trauma over what happened.”
Jang Seung-Jin, a professor at Seoul’s Kookmin University, said the Itaewon crush proved again that South Korea still has an extended method to go to develop into a complicated country in all points. He said what’s essential now’s how the country will handle the aftermath.
Because the disaster, some top officials have been severely criticized over comments that were seen as attempting to avoid government responsibility for the crush and even joking about it.
A public survey taken after the disaster shows President Yoon’s approval rating is about 30%, a really low rate given he took office only six months ago.
His future popularity could depend upon how he handles the Itaewon tragedy, said Choi Jin, director of the Seoul-based Institute of Presidential Leadership.
At a Seoul mourning center, Vietnam war veteran Park Young-kee, 82, laid white flowers and bowed to the memory of the dead, including a distant relative who was a highschool student.
“This type of disaster didn’t occur once I was young. I can’t describe how I feel,” Park said. “This occurred because we will not be a complicated country. If we’re really a complicated country, could it have happened?”
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