South Korean police on Friday blamed negligence and a failure to plan for last year’s Halloween massacre in Seoul that killed more than 150 people.
Scores of young people in party costumes, mostly women in their 20s, were killed in the disaster on October 29 in the capital’s popular Itaewon nightlife area.
The special team, which spent months combing through evidence and interviewing officials, said at the end of the inquiry that there had been a massive plot and failed to respond – but stopped short of blaming government officials or national police officials.
“The legitimate organizations to prevent and respond to disasters – the police, district offices and Seoul Metro – did not establish safety measures in advance or make poor plans,” Sohn Jae-han, head of the team, told reporters.
“Appropriate measures were not taken even after receiving rescue requests” on the day of the disaster, he said.
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Poor cooperation between agencies and delays in communication and relief efforts contributed to the higher death toll, he added.
Victims’ family groups said they were not happy with the outcome of the inquest.
Lee Jong-chul, the leader of one of the groups, said the police could not investigate fairly and were unfair to their own officers, calling for an independent investigation.
“I can’t believe this, since the special investigation team started investigating the Itaewon disaster,” he told local media.
He told Yonhap news agency that it was disappointing – but predictable – that top officials including the interior minister and the mayor of Seoul had not been investigated.
-South Korea: Hours before disaster –
Sohn said the area had become extremely busy since 5 p.m. when the incident happened, hours before the disaster.
The crowd density reached a critical “fluidity phenomenon” level – when so many people are packed into a space that they are forced into one, like a liquid – at 9 p.m., he added.
But even so, the authorities failed to intervene.
The first fall occurred at around 10:15 a.m., said Kim Dong-wook, a spokesman for the investigation team, adding that at least four other people fell in the next fifteen seconds, causing crushing injuries.
Also read: Halloween mass surge in South Korea: What we know
“Unaware of this situation, the crowd at the top continued to push the alley for 10 minutes, until 10:25, causing hundreds of people to pile up and get trapped more than 10 meters away, resulting in a crush,” Kim said.
Six people have been arrested in connection with the investigation – including Lee Im-jae, the former head of the Yongsan Police Station, which oversees Itaewon, and Park Hee-young, the head of the Yongsan district office.
Both Lee and Park are being held in custody on charges of professional negligence causing death.
In December, a teenager who survived the crush was found dead by suicide, with officials ruling that he should be considered a victim of the disaster, raising the death toll to 159.
– No high-ranking government officials are responsible –
But the team did not blame officials from the Seoul city government, the interior ministry, or national policy agencies, Sohn said, because it was “difficult to conclude that there were concrete violations”.
Interior Minister Lee Sang-min has faced heightened pressure to back down from the tragedy.
Shortly after the crash, he was widely criticized for claiming that having more fire and police departments in Itaewon would not have prevented the disaster.
Also read: More than 140 killed in Seoul Halloween crush, authorities say
He has repeatedly apologized – including in person last week to the victim’s family – but has not offered to back down.
South Korea’s rapid transformation from a war-torn, impoverished backwater to Asia’s fourth-largest economy and a global cultural powerhouse is a source of national pride.
But some preventable disasters – such as the Halloween crush and the 2014 Sewol ferry sinking that killed 304 people – have shaken public confidence in authorities.
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