What happened in Seoul?
On the evening of Saturday 29 October, around 100,000 people – mostly in their teens and 20s – poured into the narrow, sloping streets of Itaewon for one of the first major celebrations since the lifting of Covid restrictions. Shortly after 10 p.m., chaos broke out on a narrow, steep side street near Itaewon Station that connects to many bars and clubs from the main road. Witnesses reported seeing crowds climbing in different directions and people losing their footing on the slope, causing a domino effect. People fell and knocked over others, piling one person on top of another and trapping them. Others tried to climb the sides of buildings to escape.
What is crowd crush?
“Overcrowding, unmanaged crowds and broad paths filtering into narrow paths is a recipe for disaster,” explains University of Greenwich crowd behavior expert Professor Edwin Galea. This combination of factors – all present in Seoul’s Itaewon district – will lead to a high-risk event, Galea says. If the crowd density exceeds four people per square meter, and especially if it reaches six, the risk of an accident increases. Crowd crush happens whenever too many people push into a confined area – either on the street or trying to get out. People can become compressed to such an extent that they can no longer inflate their lungs and are at risk of compression asphyxiation. Often the ones who die in crowd crashes are the ones pushed into a wall. No matter how calm a crowd behaves, it can only pass through a narrow exit at a certain rate. John Drury, an expert in the social psychology of crowd management at the University of Sussex, says crowd disasters typically involve three interrelated factors: overcrowding, waves or movement in an already extremely dense crowd, and crowd collapse. When there is a blockage, the effects are intensified. “My impression is that all these factors were present in Itaewon this Halloween,” he says. “Firstly, it is obvious that the density was more than five people per square meter, which is very dangerous. Second, there were waves of people that swept people off their feet. When people are crowded together, a small movement can ripple through the crowd and cause further pressure. Thirdly, I understand there was a crowd collapse as some fell over and others fell on top of them.” The layout of the site didn’t help either – “People were fenced in on two sides,” adds Drury. Compounding the problem is that those entering a crowd are unaware of the impending danger. “Members of the public entering a crowd event cannot see that there may be dangerous levels of density ahead,” he says. “People often seek out, endure, and enjoy objectively dangerous levels of density at many crowd events,” Drury adds. Risk of accidents in moving crowdsRisk of accidents in moving crowds
How can these disasters be prevented?
Crowd management for planned large-scale events is essential, experts agree. Galea and the Fire Safety Engineering Group at the University of Greenwich are using behavioral experiments and mathematical models to understand how crowds move in different scenarios. The aim is to prevent the creation of dangerous concentrations. How the Progressive Collapse of the Crowd Happens How the Progressive Collapse of the Crowd Happens Crowd safety is not complicated, according to G Keith Still, a crowd safety expert and visiting professor of crowd science at the University of Suffolk in England. A management plan can include many simple parts: knowing the boundaries of the crowd, the routes used, the area itself, the movement of people within it, and monitoring the density of the crowd at that time. Still advises architects, police and event planners on handling large events and insists crashes are entirely “preventable, predictable and avoidable”. Rescue crews arrive at the scene where more than 150 people were killed during Halloween celebrations. Photo: YONHAP/Reuters
Because the “mass panic” of the crowd is a myth
The word “mob” is often used to describe crowd behavior. But it is wrong. “Ragging isn’t just a misnomer, it’s a loaded word because it places blame on victims for behaving in irrational, self-destructive, unconscionable and uncaring ways,” says Galea. “It’s pure ignorance and laziness… It gives the impression that they were a foolish crowd who only cared about themselves, and they were out to crush people. “In almost all of these situations this does not happen and the authorities are usually to blame for bad planning, bad planning, bad control, bad policing and bad management. “The truth is that people are only directly crushed by others who have no choice in the matter, and the people who can choose don’t know what’s going on because they’re too far from the center.” The language used after these events is often misleading, Drury agrees. For Still, this kind of language shifts responsibility and accountability from the authorities to the crowd. “At what point did someone in this crowd think, ‘Let’s be a mob,’” he asks. “They didn’t – they reacted to the overdensity and couldn’t escape, leading to progressive population collapse and mass deaths. “People don’t die because they panic. They are panicking because they are dying.”
