Admission comes as South Korean govt faces public anger over death of over 150 people during Halloween festivities
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.
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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.
14 hurt in Chicago Halloween shooting
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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