Seoul: Nearly 151 people died and over 100 were injured in a stampede where a massive crowd had gathered for Halloween. The crowd surge and crush happened in central Seoul at a prominent market in Seoul in South Korea.

As per the local source as many as one lakh people, mostly in their teens and 20s, had gone to celebrate Halloween, clogging the area’s narrow alleyways and winding streets. South Korea President Yoon Suk-yeol declared a period of national mourning Sunday; the Government would pay for the medical care of those injured and the funerals of those who died. The government will thoroughly investigate the cause of the incident and make fundamental improvements to ensure the same accident does not occur again in the future, he said.

The stampede, the deadliest in South Korea’s recent history, happened in a narrow downhill alley, with eyewitnesses describing scenes of panic as people “fell like dominoes. Nineteen foreigners were among those killed in the deadly stampede at a Halloween event, the fire department officials said. Of the dead, 97 were female and 54 were male, they added.

Police and firemen were seen trying to revive people who’d gone into cardiac arrest amid chaos in narrow streets. This year’s Halloween event was the first since the pandemic started in 2020 at which South Koreans have not been mandated to wear face masks outdoors.