A new graduate in her first full-time job. a teenage girl who helped raise her siblings after their father died. an exchange student excited about his first trip to Asia.
In the seven days since 156 people were killed in a Halloween crash in the South Korean capital, the names and stories of those who died have emerged, along with details of missed warnings and desperate calls for help.
According to police emergency call logs, several calls were made just four hours before the tragedy unfolded, as the crowd in Seoul’s bustling Itaewon night area became so packed that bystanders could not move or breathe.
Videos taken during that night show revelers realizing, slowly at first and then in a rush of panic, that what was supposed to be a fun night out was spiraling dangerously out of control.
The police eventually sent four police missions to the scene that night, but too few and too late to prevent disaster.
Families are grieving the loss of loved ones, with most victims in their teens and 20s. Amid the grief, anger has grown with demands for answers about how things could have gone so wrong.
Here’s a look back at how the disaster unfolded – and the early warning signs that were missed.
Halloween in Itaewon is not a one-off event organized by an organizer – rather, it is a popular place for young people, often dressed in elaborate costumes, to bar and club.
From Itaewon Subway Station, the main strip of nightlife is accessed via a sloping street less than 4 meters (13 ft) wide, running between the brick wall of the Hamilton Hotel and some shops. On weekends, the alley becomes a busy street for people coming and going, giving it a pleasant atmosphere where friends meet and party.
At 4 p.m. on Oct. 29, the crowd had grown “significantly large,” said Park Chang-ki, a parking attendant who worked across the street from where most of the crash took place.
By 5 p.m., the alley was so crowded that it was completely blocked, according to the owner of a restaurant facing the alley.
At 6:34 p.m., police received an emergency call – the first of 11 increasingly urgent calls that called first for crowd control and then for rescuers.
“This alley doesn’t look safe… It feels like (people) could be crushed to death,” the caller said. “I just escaped, I think you should check this out, there are just too many people.”
“The police will come out and check it out,” the officer replied.
By 7 p.m., people in the alley spilled onto the adjacent main street, said Park, the parking attendant.
According to police records, the second 911 call came in shortly after 8 p.m., with the caller saying people were being pushed, fallen and injured. “It’s chaotic … I think it needs to be controlled somehow,” the caller said.
Similar warnings soon followed, growing increasingly dire.
Shortly after 8:30 p.m., a caller alerted police that the situation was “really serious.” Twenty minutes later, another caller said it felt like a “madhouse.”
“It’s not funny. It’s not a prank,” they said, adding: “I’m begging you.”
Things quickly escalated from 8 p.m. to 9 p.m., with footage showing the streets of Itaewon – packed with clubs and bars blasting music – full of revelers standing shoulder to shoulder, some pushing forward in a slow wave.
Crowds are not unusual for Seoul or the Itaewon area, which is often full of parties on weekends. Some experts said this may have contributed to the disaster, with residents unaware of the danger because they were used to being in tight crowds.
In a selfie video taken at 20:41, 22-year-old French exchange student Anne-Lou Chevalier and her friends laugh at the number of people as they wait in the middle of a stationary crowd.
“At first we thought it was a joke,” Chevalier said. “We heard Halloween in Itaewon was amazing.”
But soon there was concern. In a video taken minutes later, the group’s laughter has taken a nervous edge as one girl says: “Just try not to fall.” Another replies: “I’m afraid.” Soon after, Chevalier says, they started feeling crashes. she passed out and was evacuated, with a photo taken at 20:58 showing her being led away from the crowd by two men.
By 9pm, an emergency caller urged police to “do an emergency mission now”, saying “a major accident could happen at any time”.
Several other callers at the time warned that people were being trampled, describing the situation as “horrendous”.
One caller, at 9:02 p.m., put it more bluntly: “Somebody’s going to die.”
By 9:30 p.m., the streets were packed. Some people reported not even being able to get out of the nearby subway station, with new attendees still arriving in the area.
By now, the danger was obvious. Ian Chang, a 21-year-old university student from Florida, arrived in Itaewon around 9:40 p.m., planning to meet his friend Steven Blesi, another American exchange student — but the crowds were so intense that he texted Blesi at 10:17 PM , urging him to avoid the area.
It is not clear whether his warning ever reached Blessy – one of two American victims who died that night, the other being 20-year-old Anne Gieske of Kentucky.
Just before 10pm, Emily Farmer, a 27-year-old English teacher in Seoul, escaped to a bar after being “overwhelmed” by the crowds. Soon after, he said, rumors began to spread that someone had died and that patrons were not being allowed to leave.
At 10:21 p.m., some began taking desperate measures. one photo shows a man climbing a wall to escape, cheered on by bystanders unaware of what was happening.
Minutes later, police began receiving reports of people being “buried” in the crowd.
“At 10:23 p.m. we received more than five reports that people were down and could either be injured or killed,” a first responder told CNN, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.
Authorities rushed to the scene, where they saw as many as “10 rows of faces — we couldn’t even see their feet,” the first responder said. They said the workers first pulled the people in the bottom row – but “when we laid them down (on the ground), most of them were unconscious”.
The sheer volume of people also made it difficult for the police to reach those who needed help. Video posted on social media showed people applying compressions to other bystanders who were lying on the ground as they waited for medical help.
Sophia Akhiyat, an American doctor in Itaewon that night, was taken to a side street after telling an officer she might be able to help.
“I was completely shocked, but I started CPR on the first body I saw,” she said. “It was so chaotic because there were so many victims on the floor, along with the foot traffic and the parties and the music from the surrounding restaurants and clubs who had no idea what was going on.”
Adding to the confusion was the fact that most people were clothed that night – meaning some mistook the police for their colleagues.
A 20-year-old eyewitness, who requested anonymity because she did not feel comfortable having her name published, said as a police officer tried to direct the crowds, she heard someone ask, “Is that a real police officer?”
By 11:46 p.m., South Korea’s Yonhap news agency had reported that dozens of people were being treated for “cardiac arrest,” citing fire officials. Photos show the street lined with police cars, with officers cordoning off the area.
At 11:55 p.m., the Seoul Metropolitan Government sent an emergency alert to residents of the Itaewon area, asking vehicles to move away due to “an emergency accident near the Hamilton Hotel.”
“Citizens, please return home as soon as possible,” it read – something that would be repeated in several more alerts over the next few hours.
That was more than five hours after the first emergency call, with reports of the disaster beginning to circulate widely on social media.
At around 12:14 a.m., the country’s National Police Service made its first report to agency chief Yoon Hee-keun, according to Yonhap.
President Yoon Suk Yeol sent a disaster medical aid team to Itaewon, ordering hospitals to prepare emergency beds.
By 12:30 p.m., the scale of the tragedy had become clear, with photos showing a line of blue bags on the street as first responders rushed the injured onto stretchers and into ambulances.
Shortly after 1 a.m., authorities released the first death toll of 59 as they worked frantically to transport wounded to nearby hospitals and bodies to multiple morgues.
In those early hours of the morning, the city government began receiving a flood of missing persons reports and began the multi-day effort to locate the victims.
At 6 a.m. Sunday, as families across South Korea awoke to the news and began the frantic search for their loved ones, the death toll had…
