South Korean police chief admits “heavy duty” for Halloween stampede catastrophe

South Korea’s police commissioner normal was amongst quite a lot of officers who apologized for the lethal Halloween stampede that left no less than 156 folks lifeless and 151 extra injured over the weekend. Yoon Hee-keun mentioned on Tuesday that the police response to the catastrophe was “insufficient.”

“I really feel a heavy duty, as the pinnacle of one of many associated authorities places of work,” Yoon mentioned in a televised information convention.

Yoon mentioned the Nationwide Police Company was trying into how officers on the bottom dealt with the gang surge, and into the truth that emergency providers acquired quite a lot of calls alerting them to the seriousness of the crush because the scenario deteriorated. Yoon mentioned the police response to these calls was “inadequate.”

“I’ll do my finest to forestall such a tragic incident from taking place once more sooner or later whereas as soon as once more feeling the limitless duty for public security by way of this accident,” Yoon mentioned after bowing to room.

Different officers, together with the mayor of Seoul and South Korea’s inside minister, additionally provided public apologies.

Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon was moved to tears throughout a information convention.

“After I tried to consolation an individual with a daughter hospitalized on the Nationwide Medical Heart yesterday, they mentioned their daughter would survive, and so they believed so,” the mayor was quote as saying by the Related Press. “I heard she handed away this morning. I’m sorry that my apology has come late.”

At a gathering of the Nationwide Meeting, Inside Minister Lee Sang-min mentioned: “It is rather unhappy for me as a father who has a son and daughter… It’s troublesome to precise in phrases how unreal this case is, and it’s troublesome to just accept this case,” in response to BBC Information.

Police have launched a 475-person taskforce to find out the reason for the catastrophe, combing by way of safety digital camera video and interviewing witnesses. They informed the BBC that the primary emergency name got here at 6:34 p.m. native time, hours earlier than the lethal stampede started, and that there have been 10 different calls over the following few hours.

Some folks have questioned the deployment of solely 137 law enforcement officials to manage the crowds within the central Seoul district amid the Halloween festivities on the night time of the catastrophe. Regardless of that being the next quantity that was deployed within the three years earlier than the COVID-19 pandemic, some 7,000 officers had been deployed to a different space of the town to observe protests that additionally drew a big turnout.

Nearly all of these killed within the tragedy had been of their 20s and 30s, and 26 had been international nationals, together with two U.S. faculty college students. Different victims had been from Russia, Iran, and Japan.

South Korea’s prime minister Han Duck-soo mentioned the international victims ought to obtain the identical authorities assist as South Koreans. 

Han was grilled by journalists for nearly 150 minutes on Tuesday, and requested repeatedly how the police appeared unaware of the catastrophe unfolding.

He mentioned the federal government was investigating and conceded that adjustments needs to be made, however insisted that, generally, South Korea was a really secure nation, and the catastrophe was a extremely uncommon occasion.

“If we had some preemptive crowd administration methods, anticipating all the issues that might occur beforehand, it might need been superb for us,” Han mentioned in response to a CBS Information query. “However this time, I learn that there was some deficiency in that regard.”