02 November,2022 09:32 AM IST | Seoul | Agencies
South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol lays a flower at a makeshift memorial, in Seoul on Tuesday. Pic/AFP
South Korea's Prime Minister Han Duck-soo has called the deadly Halloween crush in Seoul a "disastrous accident that should not have happened". Admitting that institutional failures in managing crowds played a role in the disaster, which left over 150 dead, he said the government would work with all ministries, agencies and medical institutions to ensure such tragedies never happen again.
The admission came as the South Korean government faces growing public scrutiny over whether the crowd surge on Saturday night in Seoul's Itaewon district, a popular nightlife neighbourhood, could have been prevented and who should take the responsibility for the country's worst disaster in years.
"I feel a heavy responsibility [for the disaster] as the head of one of related government offices," Yoon Hee Keun, commissioner general of the Korean National Police Agency, told a televised news conference. "Police will do their best to prevent a tragedy like this from happening again."
Yoon said an initial investigation has found that there were many urgent calls by citizens notifying authorities about the potential danger of a crowd gathering in Itaewon, but officers who had received those calls didn't respond to them in a satisfactory manner.
As many as 14 people were injured in a drive-by shooting, including three children, in the city's Garfield Park neighbourhood on Halloween night, Chicago police said.
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