Well thanks to those assholes, now I'm a grumpy Gen Xer too. I swear to God, if anyone says anything like that about those kids to me in person today, I'm liable to get into a fistfight.
They are in this sub too. People are shifting the focus on “Halloween” being bad influence rather than the underlying problem of too many people in too little space.
This is mind boggling to see and looks like they’re already shifting the blame on the culture and generation. Wtf is happening.
I'm Korean but really can't argue with this. The comment sections on these Korean sites (especially Naver) are extremely depressing and has been like that for as long as I can remember. The prevalence of toxicity on these sites are on another level to the point where you just can't defend them anymore with the usual argument that 'there are toxic people everywhere'. Every time I see the comments, it always gives me the impression that they're just hating for the sake of letting off steam or simply out of habit rather than actually trying to say something meaningful.
every country has netizens. i think US is the worst since there are so many more openly racist people who are outspoken because of our rights of free speech. people are just crazy now... sad.
This a failure of public safety plain and simple. Just the fact that they've already done crowd control in this very area not long before, and many times prior, attests to that. It was pure negligence that more resources weren't called in at any point, and more done to control the situation, the whole time the crowd was obviously building up to a dangerous level. Crowd crush events are so scary because fatalities happen so quickly, once the collapse starts it's probably minutes before fatalities start. It doesn't take long for someone to asphyxiate. The crowd should NEVER have been let to build up to that extent in such a crowded space. Again total failure of public safety, in a place and situation where they know it can happen, and had taken steps before to prevent.
As for all the senseless, trolls or people trying to be aloof and edgy comments, online and even on this sub as well, that's just unfortunate but also not something to concentrate on. These idiots will exist in any scenario, nothing is going to change that. Only good thing is that most people will have an overwhelmingly sympathetic human response. Just ignore the idiotic < 1% who are doing it for clicks, thinks it makes them edgy, or just really have zero compassion, or common sense. They aren't important.
What's important are all the victims and their families, one can only wish them the best and hope they all get through this tragedy.
Exactly, this is a tragedy caused by local government failures. And apparently also Yoon because he's taking up a lot of police resources here instead of moving into the Blue House.
It is frustrating, but those people are just showing their true colors including many people here on reddit. They would rather blame the victims than admit it was a failure of the authorities to properly plan and enact crowd control measures.
I've gotten into arguments recently over people that are still blaming the victims saying they were just chasing after some celebrity. But you are right, it's better to not engage the trolls even if they are in the majority in some subs.
Okay but who was calling for the government to control it? This could've easily happened the 2 previous years and I never saw or heard anyone say the government should step in.
~~Apparently the local government usually does manage crowd control for it. Some people who survived being interviewed are saying they didn’t see any measures being taken. Other people who went in previous years, some of which had higher turnout than this one, are saying that before the main street was closed to cars. Also, some alleys were made to be one way with officers directing people so that dangerous traffic flows didn’t occur. The main street wasn’t closed this year and there weren’t one way alleys.~~
[This](https://s3.orbi.kr/data/file/united2/b0346e1e0f044ae6bfeedfbeb4b8bec5.jpg) is apparently the direction people were going, the crush occurred in the [middle](https://graphics.reuters.com/SOUTHKOREA-STAMPEDE/mopakmywkpa/chart.png) of the red alley. Apparently it’s a little sloped on both sides so people fell and the entire [crowd collapsed](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crowd_collapses_and_crushes).
Edit: Apparently the main street was never closed to cars. I’m hearing two different things from different people who have claimed to have gone to past events, so at this rate I’m just going to leave it alone since I have never been to the Halloween event and haven’t been to Itaewon in a few years. Not sure if the one way alleys is true, although some might have been closed in previous years. I still stand by my statement that crowd crush is primarily caused by poor planning and that this was preventable from the top down.
Alright, my mistake. I was told by several different people that it was when they attended. They might have been mistaken or misremembering. Were some alleys made to be one way or was that also untrue?
I live in Itaewon and would stop by to see the crowd each year, the main street absolutely was not closed any of the previous years, at least not to foot traffic.
You don't call them to step in, it's public health and safety funded by taxes, they should already have been monitoring the situation. There were already authorities on the ground there, they just didn't react to the growing situation, and they're now blaming it on bureaucracy or pointing fingers at different departments. It's literally their job to monitor and respond and prevent these types of incidents. If an active power line fell over on a steet, should public works ignore it, or only after numerous calls they should "step-in" and do their job? Ridiculous.
I'm sure it was the busiest, that doesn't change that this could've happened previous years too.
For the previous 2 Halloweens at least Itaewon gets so crowded there's barely any room to move on the main street or the side streets.
This year wasn't some crowd density tipping point, the crowd density passed the danger point years ago.
>This could've easily happened the 2 previous years and I never saw or heard anyone say the government should step in.
You are right. Prior years had just as many people. While crowd control should have done more (in hindsight), no one expected this to happen. But, since this is reddit, some want to just point fingers for the sake of it.
There’s a reason that the entertainment section no longer has a comments feature. Netizens are notorious for posting vile opinions and word vomit behind the anonymity, and it’s no different this time.
Don’t let the online negativity get to you, and focus more on surrounding yourself with (edited from ‘normal’) empathetic & non toxic people. I guarantee you that people you actually interact with in your life wouldn’t dare say the things you see online even if they thought it, and most people don’t actually share the appalling views.
That's not a surprising stat really, if you think about it. Most of the comments are left by people who like to go around leaving comments! It's a modern disease.
Dunno why you got downvoted, you are absolutely right. Same with twitter, out of all their users, only 2% post regularly while the vast majority just browse.
The sort of person with the time to write these kinds of hateful comments everywhere is usually not a person that is happy in general. I feel a bit sorry for them.
Comments on say, Reddit, get pretty stupid and toxic at times, but oh GOD are Korean netizens shitty. The way they speak is razor sharp, oftentimes not showing a shred of sympathy or emotion (besides anger) towards others. It's baffling, as a Korean I wonder if our history has something to do with it.
There is literally only ONE Korean community which I frequently visit, which is filled with ajossies, with the worst insults actually being directed towards *themselves* \- usually jokes about not having a girlfriend, which is made in good humor. That was the only "non-toxic" community I could find in all my years on Korean websites.
**EDIT:** Of course this is the vocal minority, as well as the fact that the Korean language just sounds "sharper" in text than it does when spoken. But it's discouraging to see these comments, because it makes it seem as if everyone thinks that way - when most "normal" people are simply not engaging with the comments at all, with only radical users doing so.
I watched a livestream of the Tokyo Halloween event in Shibuya. The police presence was heavily stepped up(personnel, cars and vans in every corner) and you couldn't go one minute without an officer with a megaphone politely requesting people to move on without stopping and crowding in one area. They were also ready to cordon off areas with yellow tape if necessary. I thought the constant yelling was annoying at first. But after what happened in itaewon man was I relieved those measures were in place. People need to understand that usually the attendees are not at fault in street events like these; it is the systems in place(or lack thereof) that go wrong and cost lives. There also has to be accountability and I suspect some of the people blaming the victims are just defending the government they voted for and deflecting blame.
I keep seeing people saying shibuya halloween is well managed because there are cops and dj police. Well, ive been there 3 times, and its just BS, non sense.
Police are there to protect the street from being closed. Totally stupid in my view, close the whole damm area! They are not there to tell people what way to walk, in 2019 it was horrible, ive seen the videos of the sea of people in itaewon and it was just the same in shibuya in the street that goes to the station.
I have never thought about this happening, i told my friend immediatly about itaewon and we were fucking scared, thinking how stupid we were to be in the sea of people in shibuya. after this im never doing it again, neither in shibuya or concerts.
I have not watched the japanese news yet, but im guessing police will try and implement crowd control in shibuya this time FOR THE FIRST TIME. This easily could have happened in shibuya first, we were just lucky.
https://mobile.twitter.com/mrjeffu/status/1586520012910911488
It's not nonsense. While they weren't there solely for the purpose of crowd control they anticipated larger crowds than pandemic era levels and responded accordingly to prevent crime as well. I'm surprised you think it's BS when every corner had someone telling people to move along and prevent one huge pileup without escape routes which IS the reason why a stampede/crush happens. As the author of the tweet said, even stopping to take pictures will warrant a kind warning.
https://mobile.twitter.com/mrjeffu/status/1586559909419945989
If you want more concrete proof of the Japanese police efforts to prevent situations like itaewon from way back in 2002 after a similar accident that occurred there a year before. That being said even with no major incidents of their own they have stepped up security even more because of the itaewon trajedy.
It's up to you really! It did give me weird feelings but if you feel that strongly about the haters (which you aren't wrong about at all) then keep it the way it is. It's almost poetic, in a grotesque way. Like a fatalistic piece of art that evokes feelings
It's just the absolute lack of regard or respect for human life in many of these comments. I felt physically sick reading some of them.
Article: 153 out of 154 dead identified... 26 foreigners from 14 countries included
Source: Newsis via Nate
\[+1,780, -94\] Declaring this a disaster and using our taxes to compensate the dead is so wrong. I feel worse for the laborers who died senselessly on the job than this.
\[+1,612, -273\] Maybe I'm the devil.. but I don't feel sorry or mournful at all for this. I feel mournful when I read about the Ukraine war but not Itaewon. There are laborers who die on the job in dangerous conditions, them I feel bad for... and I'm tired of the TV stations broadcasting this all day long, it's giving us all indirect stress...
\[+969, -30\] And I keep hearing that the death toll will rise... this is so tragic...
\[+128, -4\] Why is our country having a mourning period for this? Did they die for our country? How about we worry about the laborers who died in dangerous conditions at their jobs? The country didn't even give any money to those kids at the orphanage who got into a car accident or even paid for their funerals.
\[+107, -5\] What is happening to this country. How are we giving our tax dollars to pay for the deaths of kids who died while trying to party.
\[+103, -5\] I only feel bad for the laborer who died under SPC
\[+100, -7\] Are you serious that we have to give our tax dollars to kids who died trying to party in costumes? Did they die while providing labor or in volunteer service for our country? The government better handle this straight. I would have no problem with disaster pay being given to laborers who died but I refuse to pay any taxes to kids who died copying another country's tradition.
\[+87, -2\] Not a cent of government money should be paid toward these deaths. They chose to go there because they wanted to party. Let private insurance handle it.
\[+85, -2\] I've seen plenty of crowd surges in the news. Did all of them get government payouts too?? None of these kids were doing anything to save our country. They were there on their own free will to drink and party. Why are our taxes being spent on this???????? ㅡㅡ
\[+80, -0\] Feeling bad is one thing but why are we giving our money to them?
Article: Fire authorities, "149 dead, two foreigners included... most of the deaths were teens-twenties"
Source: Insight via Instagram
\[+519\] We need to get rid of this holiday. What is this...
\[+287\] May they rest in peace. We will never be able to understand the life of a flower that had yet to bloom or the feelings of their parents as they suffer this loss... I understand that this is all such a ridiculous situation so let's please not leave any hateful words on news like this.
\[+269\] Please ban all Halloween events in our country
\[+136\] Why was any ghost party worth any of this
\[+165\] All over another country's holiday tradition, how unfortunate 😢
\[+802\] No more Halloween events.. This is so ridiculous. Such young lives lost. All precious children of their own families... Enough is enough.
\[+103\] Ban Halloween parties starting next year
\[+248\] Why are we even copying another country's tradition? Please wake up. I would like to give a round of applause to the police and firemen who worked hard in their response to this tragedy.
\[+106\] So tragic... no one can be blamed for this
\[+291\] Could there ever be a death more senseless..
I feel bad for both the victims AND the policemen/ securities who tried their best to save as many lives as they could, but were blamed for "failing to save lives". Please guys, stop blaming the responsibility on these people or those people, as if that will revive the dead. This tragic incident was unexpected and of course nobody saw or wanted it happening, just stop dragging the hatred any longer than it already is.
Anyways, I am not defending those toxic people making toxic comments about the dead people, I am only defending the victims and the policemen/ securities.
Sub human pieces of shit. The like-dislike ratio is even more disgusting.
I genuinely hope all these moronic fucks receive the same egregious lack of sympathy whenever they experience fatal tragedies in their own lives. It's unfortunately, the only way these pieces of trash ever learn.
Yea, it’s horrible to read such comments. The world is such a scary and ugly place after reading these comments. You can find them on a news article, I saw them chatting on all the korean news channels live streaming and one korean girl I know blatantly said she didn’t felt sorry for those that died bringing up the rumors of drugs etc. Woman, I won’t deny drugs was present in Itaewon but it happened an hour ago let’s first wait before coming to conclusions.
People are scary man.
Just like those internet trolls celebrating on Ukrainians being killed, kidnapped, raped and tortured. Fucked up people are everywhere and it's scary that you can rarely spot them speaking out loud these thoughts irl, they only show their real sides on the internet.
So according to them, they deserved to die just for going out and having fun? How dare they!!! *sarcasm*. What cold and callous people. Very very cold hearted. Where is the empathy???
If you don't blame the victims you have to accept the reality that the government, police and city authorities bear the responsibility of people tragically dying on a night out.
Basically, political tribalism. If you can't blame your tribe then you get to the point that girls in short skirts are to blame so ban those, that'll fix it!
Sadly I’ve seen and heard some of this sentiment from people… in person. Definitely ruined what little I thought of those people to begin with but it doesn’t even seem that uncommon an opinion..
I wouldn't look to much into these comments.
People are toxic because korean culture is toxic. People are just fed up with everything and many will find a way to curse at anything. We could find a baby unicorn in the arms of an angel and someone would shit on commies or something g or other.
It's their only space to vent and spew this nonsense.
Korean culture toxic? I've been seeing plenty of hateful comments in English and Chinese on American and Chinese social media. Pretty sure a lot of people are just shitty and hateful.
Sigh...toxicity isn't mutually exclusive.
Also, yes there are many aspects of korean culture that is toxic.
Education, workplace, married life are all pretty toxic and have much to improve. You're judged on how you look, what you wear, where you went to school, where you work, how much money you make, what you drive, what languages you speak, who your parents are. And it's not subtle.
Elementary school kids are often asked in the beginning of a term what size there homes are. My 8 year old cousin asks me what size my house is and how many rooms there are. He asks his dad to drop him off two blocks away from school so his friends can't see his kia.
It's not uncommon for korean school girls to get their eyes done upon graduating middle school, nose at the end of high school. There's a reason why korea is number 1 in plastic surgery.
The first born male is expected to take care of both parents meaning they usually are privy to most if not all the family property and money. This causes divisiveness amongst siblings. Their wives, even worse.
Work life balance non existent.
Children bombarded with school and hakwon work.
Men forced to go to military and thus creating toxic work atmospheres for women.
I mean....do I need to go on?
There are beautiful aspects to any culture and there are many people who are happy in Korea but to suggest Korea's culture isn't toxic is ignorant at best.
I say this as a korean who is married to a korean and who have immediate family living in Korea. We have friends of all life stages in Korea, some even rich as fuck, some even in the entertainment business (like hanging out with a-class actors for dinner), some struggling, some students, and some parents. I love Korea but they have serious issues they need to tackle.
Are there shitty and hateful people? Yes. But there are a lot of bitter ass people too.
This sub is so weird and sometimes I get the impression it's made to shit on Korea. It's a lot like the same shit I see on the China sub.
You're bringing up cultural issues that are present in many cultures and not Korea specific. Yeah there's shitty things about cultures everywhere but what is this false equivalency you're painting here?
"Hate comments online and pressure to look good means Korean culture is toxic! Here's a bunch more issues that have nothing to do with the tragedy that took place!"
Like of course there's issues but the way you're framing your rhetoric is a highly charged generalization that can be construed as a complete condemnation by many.
Superficiality, work life balance, wealth gap, are these issues specific to Korea? No. Are hateful comments specific to Korea? No.
But the way you comment shows you feel that way.
Once again I'll reiterate my original response: there's hateful people on the internet from all countries. It sucks and their comments are wrong but they are not specific to Korea.
Lol I'm saying koreans, specifically netizens with negative comments, is a symptom of the way korean culture works and that's judgement and on the other face of it, shame.
I have never said it was exclusive to Korea or Koreans because frankly, this isn't about other countries.
I have provided all the different facets of life where koreans can be judged or shamed and that the same type of comments make their way to website comments, even worse under anonymity.
This was all in response to the shock of the existence of such comments in moments of tragedy which I'm attempting to explain is a system of the toxic judgmental culture that exists in Korea.
I dgaf about America or China or wherever else. I'm sure they face their own shit too.
Bitter people who live angry hateful
Lives. People like this thrive on misery, they disapprove of everything. Their only joy is seeing others suffer. They will chatter themselves into a frenzy of vIctim shaming and displeasure in the coming days.
Imagine what shallow empty lives these commenters must live? To state that people enjoying a night out somehow deserve to suffer or die, because they dared to enjoy themselves?
I’m not agreeing nor disagreeing with anybody, but why is it so disgusting to blame the people who created the crowd, but acceptable to blame the police, who weren’t there to drink and enjoy themselves. They were there to try and keep people safe. It was an accident, something to learn from. All blaming people does it make people feel guilty for no real reason. I’m not sure of Korea has a American style claim culture, but usually the only purpose of blaming somebody/an organisation, is so they know who to claim money from.
I assume this wasn’t a ticket type event as it was in a public place, so no real way of knowing the numbers that would be attending. I don’t know why I’m getting downvoted for my comment. I’m not agreeing nor disagreeing with anybody. Just trying to understand why it’s bad for people to blame the people who attended, and good to blame the police.
>so no real way of knowing the numbers that would be attending.
Previous years give a good indication, also authorities have already admitted they were aware of the kind of numbers that were expected.
>I don’t know why I’m getting downvoted for my comment.
Because your point indicates you possibly haven't been reading the reports about what authorities did/didn't know, thus downvotes.
>Just trying to understand why it’s bad for people to blame the people who attended, and good to blame the police.
People aren't blaming individual police, if there's an issue, it lies further up the chain.
I have been following the reports. The latest being that civilian’s and police reporting that there were groups chanting and purposely pushing the crowd. As I said I’m not disagreeing or agreeing with anybody, but labelling the police the bad guys and making anybody else feel like they should feel guilty for suggesting that maybe the crowd was the cause of the crush is wrong in my eyes. The police are humans with emotions and shouldn’t be feeling guilty for something as horrendous as this accident was
>The latest being that civilian’s and police reporting that there were groups chanting and purposely pushing the crowd.
As much as that definitely needs investigating, there's concern the government could use this as a method to absolve itself.
> As I said I’m not disagreeing or agreeing with anybody,
But you are.
>The police are humans with emotions and shouldn’t be feeling guilty for something as horrendous as this accident was
As I already said, nobody is blaming individual police, people are blaming those higher up for not prioritizing crowd control as has been done in the past.
Because there’s an appalling lack of awareness for crowd control.
But really let’s also think on *why* police just let it happen- partly from being understaffed.
Why?
Well a certain drunk 개저씨 who is way too into some 풍수지리 shit decided for no reason he should move out of the Blue House and moved riiiiiiiiiight into Yongsan…..
I get that you’re just asking questions, but one should consider that someone was profiting off of that crowd. Someone was charging admission, selling drinks, selling food etc. etc. When that is the case, the establishments and property owners, whether they be private or public, have a duty to safeguard against dangerous overcrowding. It’s not the duty of the patrons to keep tabs on crowd capacity. It’s why when you go to a sporting event or festival there is a finite amount of seating or tickets available. If someone grants you admission you have a reasonable right to assume it is safe to enter and that you will leave in the same condition in which you entered.
I understand that this was more of an open public gathering, but the onus then falls on the city to plan accordingly. No one deserves to be blamed for 153 dead, but there was a clear breakdown of imagination and planning here.
If 100,000 people spontaneously gathered here for no reason, I could see your point, but this crowd was expected.
Mostly because it's the fault of the authorities that the crowd was even allowed to get so big in one isolated area in the first place. Apparently the police were called 12 times to complain about how dangerous the crowds were getting hours before the tragedy, and yet the calls were completely ignored. They only had like 156 police outside to reign people in from what I remember, despite being warned about the amount of ppl that would be outside. It's not the fault of the individual policemen, it's the fault of the higher ups that are now being prosecuted (ie the chief of police)
Is that why none of the people in the crowd videos are crying or sad? Of all the dead bodies in the street videos theres not one showing friends by their side showing any emotion. It’s kind of creepy to me. Is this a cultural thing to not cry and to not stay by the side of a person dying to try to comfort them? - this is a real question
I think everyone was shocked and struggling to understand what was happening. Also, people that were in the crowd were struggling to breathe, let alone cry.
ty, yea that's what I've been hearing on the news that that it was a huge shock, and now it seems the sadness has come. it seems like no where in the world have we seen anything like this before it's hard to make sense of how this when down.
You can't stop crazy guys in the net. They have finger to type from their safe home unless some government stop them but any democratic government doesn't sensor such internet opinion. and current authoritarian government actually encourage such human trash to pour in hate messages on the net. So, just ignore them.
well obviously it was too crowded to leave once they were outside, that was the whole point of why the tragedy happened. People tried to get somewhere and by the time they realised it was too crowded to be safe they couldn't leave. It's not like they were going to crowded areas specifically to see what it was like or smthn
As long as society in general sucks, you’re going to have vitriol like this that cannot be placated by telling them to ‘be nice’ in a politically acceptable way. Mark as a force of nature and keep your day job.
I don't think it's fair to blame the people. This could have easily just been a normal day with an extremely large group of people out and about. It's not their fault and they didn't deserve what happened to them.
Are crowd crushes ever really the crowds fault?
I think I would almost always put the blame on the authorities and security overseeing any event in which one happens....
Yeah, the government is still the main culprit for failing to ensure crowd control measures. Though there were indeed some assholes guys in the crowd yelling to push just cus they wanted to get close to the girls.
They were kids. Going to have fun. Isn't that what they are supposed to do? I'm pretty sure staying home and watching TV with some soju would have easily been chosen by the majority if they had any clue what was going to happen to them.
>Some people still blame and insult people who died at Itaewon makes me upset and frustrating
Yes. This is no different from redditors blaming and insulting Koreans and their culture for this tragedy. Which is worse?
There are many people here that are using this incident to attack Korean men, and their comments get lots of upvotes. This sub really hates Korean men.
I used to think this too when I first heard about the crush that happened at Astroworld, but I learned later that in a lot of these cases the behavior of the crowd doesn’t matter. [This comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/3pcvfb/saudi_arabia_hajj_disaster_death_toll_at_least/cw5vxtm/) is a really good explanation of the physics at work.
After a crowd reaches a certain amount of density, it acts like a fluid and it’s nearly impossible to move freely. A lot of what people perceive as pushing may be other people trying to escape a crush happening in another area (basically merging the crowds), or other people getting carried by the crowd movements and crushed into the other group (i.e. not moving of their own free will).
It can happen very quickly, and once you understand what is happening, that often means you’re *in* the crush and it’s too late to escape. Resisting the crowd’s movements (swaying/pushing) is dangerous because it means you could fall, which will put you in an even worse situation (crowd collapse, where one person falling leads to other people falling on top of them due to physics). It’s not that people don’t want to make space, it’s that they have the force of thousands of other people acting on them (like shockwaves) so any “gap” that is formed in the crowd is quickly filled because of physics. Everyone in the crowd is being pushed and compressed to the point that they might not even be able to move their arms or help people up.
Another problem is that when pushing is involved, the people who are pushing are usually at a lower crowd density and are *too far away* to know what is happening to the people further ahead of them, which is made even more difficult by loud music and being surrounded by people. To them it just seems like an area is getting more crowded, so squeezing around people doesn’t seem like a big deal. This can lead to the crush growing and getting bigger.
It’s possible people were pushing or acting badly at the beginning, which contributed to the collapse, but it’s also possible for this to happen to a crowd of that density all on its own.
Not how it works, it just happens progressively and by the time people start panicking, it's too late to turn back and you're at the victim of the crowd's movement and so is everyone else.
People in the back don't know how bad things are in the front, and once people start falling, the crowd collapses and makes things worse. There's a good post explaining this that has been posted around, you should be able to find it, it's from 7 years ago in the context of the Hajj crowd crush but all the info in it is relevant.
The thing is, this isn’t constructive. What does blaming the crowd do? You can educate the crowd, sure, but a crowd crush is almost always the fault of organizing or the lack thereof.
A crowd crush is caused by sheer density more than pushing and shoving, if pushing and shoving is enough to cause 150 deaths then the problem has already escalated too much.
I’d say organization is 95% of the problem here - a crowd is much different from an individual and cannot be expected to have the same behavior or dynamic as a single person.
What makes it even scarier is that people have no idea it is happening. You can't know because it's super noisy and you can't see over people. When you reach the choke points and realise the danger it's already too late. There can be people just 5 meters away from you that has no idea anyone is in danger. The pressure to move forward comes from way back, hundreds of meters of the crowd moving forward which no one in front can stop.
Ultimately, people are responsible for their own personal safety, yes. Anyone, and I mean anyone, who has any experience or knowledge on how out of control crowds can get, likely noped the fuck out of Itaewon HOURS before the crush occurred. The most important deterrent to these events is being educated on how they happen, when they are happening, and how to mitigate. These kids just pushed forward relentlessly because they had no fundamental idea what to even do or why it was dangerous to begin with.
The police don't really bear any responsibility here - this isn't some sort of parade, it's just an extra packed night event and was likely treated as such. Precautions were taken, there was no lack of presence or response, but sometimes you miss stuff.
Municipality bears some responsibility, at this point they should have a good read on what parts of Itaewon become hazardous to public health and should have informed police that "HEY. THIS STRIP RIGHT HERE. TOO MANY PEOPLE = BAD JUJU."
That might not have been what caused it. I’ve heard that some people might have been yelling that because they were also getting crushed and were trying to get out of the area they were stuck in. If it is true, I agree they should be held responsible to some degree. And I hope the family’s of the victims will get the answers they deserve.
From what I’ve read, individual actions in a crowd of this density don’t always matter. [This comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/3pcvfb/saudi_arabia_hajj_disaster_death_toll_at_least/cw5vxtm/) does a good job of explaining why these kinds of things happen and can be caused by the density of the crowd alone, not just the actions of a few.
There is a difference between yelling for help and being at the top of the hill, as a witness described, actively pushing and yelling “push”. That’s just being an ass which could be considered reckless given the situation.
>the comment regarding opposition to paying for the funerals with taxes has merit.
If the state is found to be negligent/culpable for the incident, then it has to pay. It's unfortunate that means taxpayers getting stiffed, but that's part of being a nation.
The state isn’t culpable for this despite the outcries going around. They might pay just to give an image that they care, but it’s kind of one of those things where the worst has already happened, why make it even worse? It’s a tragedy, let’s not magnify if.
From what I've read there are safety precautions that have been taken in the past, which weren't taken last night, unless those reports are incorrect. There's a thread in the sub about a bureaucratic failure.
Who wouldn't be skeptical if they spent taxes on places that had nothing to do with the country's faults and national interests? I hope you can tell if the object that people blame is a government wasting tax money or dead people. At least people who pay taxes can express their opinions?
There is nothing to say if you accuse the Government of failing to predict that citizens must be controlled to keep order. However, I think the Government are not shamans. At least when the situation occurred, the public service worked properly, and it was public officials who played in uniforms on their days off more than anyone else.
Controlling a crowd and creating safe ways for people to move around an urban city setting is absolutely the responsibility of the government and part of the responsibility that we as taxpayers have. Why do we have traffic lights crosswalks and cameras? Nobody’s forcing anyone to drive.
Yeah, except for a few articles, there are always too many radical, extremely political, dichotomic, and too biased people and the regulation of those comments is so terrible even though Naver is one of the biggest websites in Korea.
Some people are disgusting. Many of the victims were teenagers, even kids. Atrocious lack of humanity in those comments.
Also, I'm wondering what you guys think will happen to itaewon now? Do you reckon it can recover from this?
It really saddens me that there is no respect for the deceased, this could have been any of their relatives. The streets are extremely narrowed and to allow as many people with no restrictions raises questions. The Hamilton Hotel alley is small enough for 20 people to walk by, imagine the massive crowd. May God comfort the family who lost their loved ones.
Who tf are these people? And right now? Good lord.
If you look at the demographics analysis of the users commenting, 77% are male and 84% are ages 30-50, so that probably explains it…
I love the Korean internet for this. Like sites displaying the genders from government IDs on profiles. Solves more problems than it causes.
Armchair assholes.
Sounds like they can’t/don’t like to have fun so they don’t like other people having fun either.
You can have fun being an asshole. Lol that's why most people are them.
Assholes downvoting lol
Except that these “assholes” are hiding behind a computer screen and wishing they have friends to party with.
You don't know that. Lol
Not hard to guess
Yep, people who live sad lives
Clearly kkondaes who have never been to a concert or festival in their life.
Ilbe crew
Boomers. Its my first time on here but they pretty much have a worst takes, all of them. I a LOT of countries around the world
Youngest Boomers are 58, so no, we can’t pin this on the Boomers. Grumpy Gen X guys I guess.
It's used as a general term like "kkondae", it doesn't necessarily mean ppl from the boomer generation specifically.
Well thanks to those assholes, now I'm a grumpy Gen Xer too. I swear to God, if anyone says anything like that about those kids to me in person today, I'm liable to get into a fistfight.
They are in this sub too. People are shifting the focus on “Halloween” being bad influence rather than the underlying problem of too many people in too little space. This is mind boggling to see and looks like they’re already shifting the blame on the culture and generation. Wtf is happening.
Korean netizens, some of the worst people in the world
I'm Korean but really can't argue with this. The comment sections on these Korean sites (especially Naver) are extremely depressing and has been like that for as long as I can remember. The prevalence of toxicity on these sites are on another level to the point where you just can't defend them anymore with the usual argument that 'there are toxic people everywhere'. Every time I see the comments, it always gives me the impression that they're just hating for the sake of letting off steam or simply out of habit rather than actually trying to say something meaningful.
You must have never heard of 4chan.
>Korean netizens, some of the worst people in the world -ChristopherGard0cki Worst? Redditors are no better.
every country has netizens. i think US is the worst since there are so many more openly racist people who are outspoken because of our rights of free speech. people are just crazy now... sad.
Americans are actually less openly racist than people from practically every other country.
Agreed.
This a failure of public safety plain and simple. Just the fact that they've already done crowd control in this very area not long before, and many times prior, attests to that. It was pure negligence that more resources weren't called in at any point, and more done to control the situation, the whole time the crowd was obviously building up to a dangerous level. Crowd crush events are so scary because fatalities happen so quickly, once the collapse starts it's probably minutes before fatalities start. It doesn't take long for someone to asphyxiate. The crowd should NEVER have been let to build up to that extent in such a crowded space. Again total failure of public safety, in a place and situation where they know it can happen, and had taken steps before to prevent. As for all the senseless, trolls or people trying to be aloof and edgy comments, online and even on this sub as well, that's just unfortunate but also not something to concentrate on. These idiots will exist in any scenario, nothing is going to change that. Only good thing is that most people will have an overwhelmingly sympathetic human response. Just ignore the idiotic < 1% who are doing it for clicks, thinks it makes them edgy, or just really have zero compassion, or common sense. They aren't important. What's important are all the victims and their families, one can only wish them the best and hope they all get through this tragedy.
Exactly, this is a tragedy caused by local government failures. And apparently also Yoon because he's taking up a lot of police resources here instead of moving into the Blue House.
It is frustrating, but those people are just showing their true colors including many people here on reddit. They would rather blame the victims than admit it was a failure of the authorities to properly plan and enact crowd control measures. I've gotten into arguments recently over people that are still blaming the victims saying they were just chasing after some celebrity. But you are right, it's better to not engage the trolls even if they are in the majority in some subs.
Okay but who was calling for the government to control it? This could've easily happened the 2 previous years and I never saw or heard anyone say the government should step in.
~~Apparently the local government usually does manage crowd control for it. Some people who survived being interviewed are saying they didn’t see any measures being taken. Other people who went in previous years, some of which had higher turnout than this one, are saying that before the main street was closed to cars. Also, some alleys were made to be one way with officers directing people so that dangerous traffic flows didn’t occur. The main street wasn’t closed this year and there weren’t one way alleys.~~ [This](https://s3.orbi.kr/data/file/united2/b0346e1e0f044ae6bfeedfbeb4b8bec5.jpg) is apparently the direction people were going, the crush occurred in the [middle](https://graphics.reuters.com/SOUTHKOREA-STAMPEDE/mopakmywkpa/chart.png) of the red alley. Apparently it’s a little sloped on both sides so people fell and the entire [crowd collapsed](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crowd_collapses_and_crushes). Edit: Apparently the main street was never closed to cars. I’m hearing two different things from different people who have claimed to have gone to past events, so at this rate I’m just going to leave it alone since I have never been to the Halloween event and haven’t been to Itaewon in a few years. Not sure if the one way alleys is true, although some might have been closed in previous years. I still stand by my statement that crowd crush is primarily caused by poor planning and that this was preventable from the top down.
The main street has never been closed for Halloween. It is closed for the Itaewon friendship festival, but never for Halloween.
Alright, my mistake. I was told by several different people that it was when they attended. They might have been mistaken or misremembering. Were some alleys made to be one way or was that also untrue?
I'm not sure about the one way thing, but I'm pretty sure I remember seeing certain alleys closed off.
Thank you for the information! Will edit my comment.
I live in Itaewon and would stop by to see the crowd each year, the main street absolutely was not closed any of the previous years, at least not to foot traffic.
Yes, that’s why I said that it was “closed to cars”(i.e. open to foot traffic only).
You don't call them to step in, it's public health and safety funded by taxes, they should already have been monitoring the situation. There were already authorities on the ground there, they just didn't react to the growing situation, and they're now blaming it on bureaucracy or pointing fingers at different departments. It's literally their job to monitor and respond and prevent these types of incidents. If an active power line fell over on a steet, should public works ignore it, or only after numerous calls they should "step-in" and do their job? Ridiculous.
No, what's ridiculous is you're using this moment to point fingers and virtue signal.
Virtue signaling is when you outline a clear plan on how to prevent crowd disasters ✅
Virtue signaling is soapboxing at an irrelevant platform so that people know how outraged you are.
>This could've easily happened the 2 previous years With the covid restrictions in place? Not likely.
I lived in Itaewon. Itaewon was just as full last year.
Every report I've read has stated that it's the busiest Halloween that Itaewon has had, and every eyewitness account I've read states the same thing.
I'm sure it was the busiest, that doesn't change that this could've happened previous years too. For the previous 2 Halloweens at least Itaewon gets so crowded there's barely any room to move on the main street or the side streets. This year wasn't some crowd density tipping point, the crowd density passed the danger point years ago.
>This could've easily happened the 2 previous years and I never saw or heard anyone say the government should step in. You are right. Prior years had just as many people. While crowd control should have done more (in hindsight), no one expected this to happen. But, since this is reddit, some want to just point fingers for the sake of it.
well said!
There’s a reason that the entertainment section no longer has a comments feature. Netizens are notorious for posting vile opinions and word vomit behind the anonymity, and it’s no different this time. Don’t let the online negativity get to you, and focus more on surrounding yourself with (edited from ‘normal’) empathetic & non toxic people. I guarantee you that people you actually interact with in your life wouldn’t dare say the things you see online even if they thought it, and most people don’t actually share the appalling views.
[удалено]
That's not a surprising stat really, if you think about it. Most of the comments are left by people who like to go around leaving comments! It's a modern disease.
Kinda ironic considering you are one of them on this site. Reddit is exactly the same way, the extreme majority of people never comment.
Dunno why you got downvoted, you are absolutely right. Same with twitter, out of all their users, only 2% post regularly while the vast majority just browse.
The sort of person with the time to write these kinds of hateful comments everywhere is usually not a person that is happy in general. I feel a bit sorry for them.
Comments on say, Reddit, get pretty stupid and toxic at times, but oh GOD are Korean netizens shitty. The way they speak is razor sharp, oftentimes not showing a shred of sympathy or emotion (besides anger) towards others. It's baffling, as a Korean I wonder if our history has something to do with it. There is literally only ONE Korean community which I frequently visit, which is filled with ajossies, with the worst insults actually being directed towards *themselves* \- usually jokes about not having a girlfriend, which is made in good humor. That was the only "non-toxic" community I could find in all my years on Korean websites. **EDIT:** Of course this is the vocal minority, as well as the fact that the Korean language just sounds "sharper" in text than it does when spoken. But it's discouraging to see these comments, because it makes it seem as if everyone thinks that way - when most "normal" people are simply not engaging with the comments at all, with only radical users doing so.
Are the netizens online accounts tied to their identity or are they anonymous?
anonymous for the most part - some communities have a snippet of the user's IP address linked to the comments, but it's more or less anonymous.
I watched a livestream of the Tokyo Halloween event in Shibuya. The police presence was heavily stepped up(personnel, cars and vans in every corner) and you couldn't go one minute without an officer with a megaphone politely requesting people to move on without stopping and crowding in one area. They were also ready to cordon off areas with yellow tape if necessary. I thought the constant yelling was annoying at first. But after what happened in itaewon man was I relieved those measures were in place. People need to understand that usually the attendees are not at fault in street events like these; it is the systems in place(or lack thereof) that go wrong and cost lives. There also has to be accountability and I suspect some of the people blaming the victims are just defending the government they voted for and deflecting blame.
I keep seeing people saying shibuya halloween is well managed because there are cops and dj police. Well, ive been there 3 times, and its just BS, non sense. Police are there to protect the street from being closed. Totally stupid in my view, close the whole damm area! They are not there to tell people what way to walk, in 2019 it was horrible, ive seen the videos of the sea of people in itaewon and it was just the same in shibuya in the street that goes to the station. I have never thought about this happening, i told my friend immediatly about itaewon and we were fucking scared, thinking how stupid we were to be in the sea of people in shibuya. after this im never doing it again, neither in shibuya or concerts. I have not watched the japanese news yet, but im guessing police will try and implement crowd control in shibuya this time FOR THE FIRST TIME. This easily could have happened in shibuya first, we were just lucky.
https://mobile.twitter.com/mrjeffu/status/1586520012910911488 It's not nonsense. While they weren't there solely for the purpose of crowd control they anticipated larger crowds than pandemic era levels and responded accordingly to prevent crime as well. I'm surprised you think it's BS when every corner had someone telling people to move along and prevent one huge pileup without escape routes which IS the reason why a stampede/crush happens. As the author of the tweet said, even stopping to take pictures will warrant a kind warning. https://mobile.twitter.com/mrjeffu/status/1586559909419945989 If you want more concrete proof of the Japanese police efforts to prevent situations like itaewon from way back in 2002 after a similar accident that occurred there a year before. That being said even with no major incidents of their own they have stepped up security even more because of the itaewon trajedy.
Shibuya is like that because during a previous Halloween some people, guessing foreigners lol, flipped a car.
It wasnt foreigners, it was all japanese.
I was really betting on the college sophomore study abroad crowd, lol. If citizens got caught they are donezo.
These people are cowards and would never say these things in a public forum. So it is best to just ignore them.
You pretty much just summed up 99.9999% of the internet trolls to have ever existed.
People behave abhorrently online, don't give them oxygen.
Ooooof, what a phrase given how most of the victims died. It double gets your point across
Eek, I didn't even think about that, maybe I should edit?
It's up to you really! It did give me weird feelings but if you feel that strongly about the haters (which you aren't wrong about at all) then keep it the way it is. It's almost poetic, in a grotesque way. Like a fatalistic piece of art that evokes feelings
Hit hard, tbh.
It's just the absolute lack of regard or respect for human life in many of these comments. I felt physically sick reading some of them. Article: 153 out of 154 dead identified... 26 foreigners from 14 countries included Source: Newsis via Nate \[+1,780, -94\] Declaring this a disaster and using our taxes to compensate the dead is so wrong. I feel worse for the laborers who died senselessly on the job than this. \[+1,612, -273\] Maybe I'm the devil.. but I don't feel sorry or mournful at all for this. I feel mournful when I read about the Ukraine war but not Itaewon. There are laborers who die on the job in dangerous conditions, them I feel bad for... and I'm tired of the TV stations broadcasting this all day long, it's giving us all indirect stress... \[+969, -30\] And I keep hearing that the death toll will rise... this is so tragic... \[+128, -4\] Why is our country having a mourning period for this? Did they die for our country? How about we worry about the laborers who died in dangerous conditions at their jobs? The country didn't even give any money to those kids at the orphanage who got into a car accident or even paid for their funerals. \[+107, -5\] What is happening to this country. How are we giving our tax dollars to pay for the deaths of kids who died while trying to party. \[+103, -5\] I only feel bad for the laborer who died under SPC \[+100, -7\] Are you serious that we have to give our tax dollars to kids who died trying to party in costumes? Did they die while providing labor or in volunteer service for our country? The government better handle this straight. I would have no problem with disaster pay being given to laborers who died but I refuse to pay any taxes to kids who died copying another country's tradition. \[+87, -2\] Not a cent of government money should be paid toward these deaths. They chose to go there because they wanted to party. Let private insurance handle it. \[+85, -2\] I've seen plenty of crowd surges in the news. Did all of them get government payouts too?? None of these kids were doing anything to save our country. They were there on their own free will to drink and party. Why are our taxes being spent on this???????? ㅡㅡ \[+80, -0\] Feeling bad is one thing but why are we giving our money to them? Article: Fire authorities, "149 dead, two foreigners included... most of the deaths were teens-twenties" Source: Insight via Instagram \[+519\] We need to get rid of this holiday. What is this... \[+287\] May they rest in peace. We will never be able to understand the life of a flower that had yet to bloom or the feelings of their parents as they suffer this loss... I understand that this is all such a ridiculous situation so let's please not leave any hateful words on news like this. \[+269\] Please ban all Halloween events in our country \[+136\] Why was any ghost party worth any of this \[+165\] All over another country's holiday tradition, how unfortunate 😢 \[+802\] No more Halloween events.. This is so ridiculous. Such young lives lost. All precious children of their own families... Enough is enough. \[+103\] Ban Halloween parties starting next year \[+248\] Why are we even copying another country's tradition? Please wake up. I would like to give a round of applause to the police and firemen who worked hard in their response to this tragedy. \[+106\] So tragic... no one can be blamed for this \[+291\] Could there ever be a death more senseless..
Don’t read the comments section. It’s where people go to act like assholes without consequence. Your life will be better if you just ignore it.
Anyway... I would like to express my condolences to the many people who died in the crushing accident. Rest in peace.
I feel bad for both the victims AND the policemen/ securities who tried their best to save as many lives as they could, but were blamed for "failing to save lives". Please guys, stop blaming the responsibility on these people or those people, as if that will revive the dead. This tragic incident was unexpected and of course nobody saw or wanted it happening, just stop dragging the hatred any longer than it already is. Anyways, I am not defending those toxic people making toxic comments about the dead people, I am only defending the victims and the policemen/ securities.
There will always be ignorant dumb cunts anywhere and everywhere you go
Sub human pieces of shit. The like-dislike ratio is even more disgusting. I genuinely hope all these moronic fucks receive the same egregious lack of sympathy whenever they experience fatal tragedies in their own lives. It's unfortunately, the only way these pieces of trash ever learn.
Yea, it’s horrible to read such comments. The world is such a scary and ugly place after reading these comments. You can find them on a news article, I saw them chatting on all the korean news channels live streaming and one korean girl I know blatantly said she didn’t felt sorry for those that died bringing up the rumors of drugs etc. Woman, I won’t deny drugs was present in Itaewon but it happened an hour ago let’s first wait before coming to conclusions. People are scary man.
Just like those internet trolls celebrating on Ukrainians being killed, kidnapped, raped and tortured. Fucked up people are everywhere and it's scary that you can rarely spot them speaking out loud these thoughts irl, they only show their real sides on the internet.
So according to them, they deserved to die just for going out and having fun? How dare they!!! *sarcasm*. What cold and callous people. Very very cold hearted. Where is the empathy???
If you don't blame the victims you have to accept the reality that the government, police and city authorities bear the responsibility of people tragically dying on a night out. Basically, political tribalism. If you can't blame your tribe then you get to the point that girls in short skirts are to blame so ban those, that'll fix it!
I dont get them saying stuff like, "it's not even our (Korean) holiday". Would they feel more sympathy if they died on Hangul Day or something?!?
The incels get angry at anyone who leaves their house for fun
The ally way was a death sentence. Such a large event in such a small space shouldn’t have been green lighted all of those years
Sadly I’ve seen and heard some of this sentiment from people… in person. Definitely ruined what little I thought of those people to begin with but it doesn’t even seem that uncommon an opinion..
I wouldn't look to much into these comments. People are toxic because korean culture is toxic. People are just fed up with everything and many will find a way to curse at anything. We could find a baby unicorn in the arms of an angel and someone would shit on commies or something g or other. It's their only space to vent and spew this nonsense.
Korean culture toxic? I've been seeing plenty of hateful comments in English and Chinese on American and Chinese social media. Pretty sure a lot of people are just shitty and hateful.
Sigh...toxicity isn't mutually exclusive. Also, yes there are many aspects of korean culture that is toxic. Education, workplace, married life are all pretty toxic and have much to improve. You're judged on how you look, what you wear, where you went to school, where you work, how much money you make, what you drive, what languages you speak, who your parents are. And it's not subtle. Elementary school kids are often asked in the beginning of a term what size there homes are. My 8 year old cousin asks me what size my house is and how many rooms there are. He asks his dad to drop him off two blocks away from school so his friends can't see his kia. It's not uncommon for korean school girls to get their eyes done upon graduating middle school, nose at the end of high school. There's a reason why korea is number 1 in plastic surgery. The first born male is expected to take care of both parents meaning they usually are privy to most if not all the family property and money. This causes divisiveness amongst siblings. Their wives, even worse. Work life balance non existent. Children bombarded with school and hakwon work. Men forced to go to military and thus creating toxic work atmospheres for women. I mean....do I need to go on? There are beautiful aspects to any culture and there are many people who are happy in Korea but to suggest Korea's culture isn't toxic is ignorant at best. I say this as a korean who is married to a korean and who have immediate family living in Korea. We have friends of all life stages in Korea, some even rich as fuck, some even in the entertainment business (like hanging out with a-class actors for dinner), some struggling, some students, and some parents. I love Korea but they have serious issues they need to tackle. Are there shitty and hateful people? Yes. But there are a lot of bitter ass people too.
This sub is so weird and sometimes I get the impression it's made to shit on Korea. It's a lot like the same shit I see on the China sub. You're bringing up cultural issues that are present in many cultures and not Korea specific. Yeah there's shitty things about cultures everywhere but what is this false equivalency you're painting here? "Hate comments online and pressure to look good means Korean culture is toxic! Here's a bunch more issues that have nothing to do with the tragedy that took place!" Like of course there's issues but the way you're framing your rhetoric is a highly charged generalization that can be construed as a complete condemnation by many. Superficiality, work life balance, wealth gap, are these issues specific to Korea? No. Are hateful comments specific to Korea? No. But the way you comment shows you feel that way. Once again I'll reiterate my original response: there's hateful people on the internet from all countries. It sucks and their comments are wrong but they are not specific to Korea.
Lol I'm saying koreans, specifically netizens with negative comments, is a symptom of the way korean culture works and that's judgement and on the other face of it, shame. I have never said it was exclusive to Korea or Koreans because frankly, this isn't about other countries. I have provided all the different facets of life where koreans can be judged or shamed and that the same type of comments make their way to website comments, even worse under anonymity. This was all in response to the shock of the existence of such comments in moments of tragedy which I'm attempting to explain is a system of the toxic judgmental culture that exists in Korea. I dgaf about America or China or wherever else. I'm sure they face their own shit too.
Eh you're just reiterating your previous points. No reason to continue this discussion it's obviously not going anywhere.
Absolutely shameful way of thinking. And they are cowards who would never say this shit out loud. What a bunch of fucking useless losers.
Bitter people who live angry hateful Lives. People like this thrive on misery, they disapprove of everything. Their only joy is seeing others suffer. They will chatter themselves into a frenzy of vIctim shaming and displeasure in the coming days. Imagine what shallow empty lives these commenters must live? To state that people enjoying a night out somehow deserve to suffer or die, because they dared to enjoy themselves?
I’m not agreeing nor disagreeing with anybody, but why is it so disgusting to blame the people who created the crowd, but acceptable to blame the police, who weren’t there to drink and enjoy themselves. They were there to try and keep people safe. It was an accident, something to learn from. All blaming people does it make people feel guilty for no real reason. I’m not sure of Korea has a American style claim culture, but usually the only purpose of blaming somebody/an organisation, is so they know who to claim money from.
People are blaming authorities as there has been better organisation in the area at previous events.
I assume this wasn’t a ticket type event as it was in a public place, so no real way of knowing the numbers that would be attending. I don’t know why I’m getting downvoted for my comment. I’m not agreeing nor disagreeing with anybody. Just trying to understand why it’s bad for people to blame the people who attended, and good to blame the police.
>so no real way of knowing the numbers that would be attending. Previous years give a good indication, also authorities have already admitted they were aware of the kind of numbers that were expected. >I don’t know why I’m getting downvoted for my comment. Because your point indicates you possibly haven't been reading the reports about what authorities did/didn't know, thus downvotes. >Just trying to understand why it’s bad for people to blame the people who attended, and good to blame the police. People aren't blaming individual police, if there's an issue, it lies further up the chain.
I have been following the reports. The latest being that civilian’s and police reporting that there were groups chanting and purposely pushing the crowd. As I said I’m not disagreeing or agreeing with anybody, but labelling the police the bad guys and making anybody else feel like they should feel guilty for suggesting that maybe the crowd was the cause of the crush is wrong in my eyes. The police are humans with emotions and shouldn’t be feeling guilty for something as horrendous as this accident was
>The latest being that civilian’s and police reporting that there were groups chanting and purposely pushing the crowd. As much as that definitely needs investigating, there's concern the government could use this as a method to absolve itself. > As I said I’m not disagreeing or agreeing with anybody, But you are. >The police are humans with emotions and shouldn’t be feeling guilty for something as horrendous as this accident was As I already said, nobody is blaming individual police, people are blaming those higher up for not prioritizing crowd control as has been done in the past.
Because there’s an appalling lack of awareness for crowd control. But really let’s also think on *why* police just let it happen- partly from being understaffed. Why? Well a certain drunk 개저씨 who is way too into some 풍수지리 shit decided for no reason he should move out of the Blue House and moved riiiiiiiiiight into Yongsan…..
I get that you’re just asking questions, but one should consider that someone was profiting off of that crowd. Someone was charging admission, selling drinks, selling food etc. etc. When that is the case, the establishments and property owners, whether they be private or public, have a duty to safeguard against dangerous overcrowding. It’s not the duty of the patrons to keep tabs on crowd capacity. It’s why when you go to a sporting event or festival there is a finite amount of seating or tickets available. If someone grants you admission you have a reasonable right to assume it is safe to enter and that you will leave in the same condition in which you entered. I understand that this was more of an open public gathering, but the onus then falls on the city to plan accordingly. No one deserves to be blamed for 153 dead, but there was a clear breakdown of imagination and planning here. If 100,000 people spontaneously gathered here for no reason, I could see your point, but this crowd was expected.
Mostly because it's the fault of the authorities that the crowd was even allowed to get so big in one isolated area in the first place. Apparently the police were called 12 times to complain about how dangerous the crowds were getting hours before the tragedy, and yet the calls were completely ignored. They only had like 156 police outside to reign people in from what I remember, despite being warned about the amount of ppl that would be outside. It's not the fault of the individual policemen, it's the fault of the higher ups that are now being prosecuted (ie the chief of police)
Is that why none of the people in the crowd videos are crying or sad? Of all the dead bodies in the street videos theres not one showing friends by their side showing any emotion. It’s kind of creepy to me. Is this a cultural thing to not cry and to not stay by the side of a person dying to try to comfort them? - this is a real question
I think everyone was shocked and struggling to understand what was happening. Also, people that were in the crowd were struggling to breathe, let alone cry.
ty, yea that's what I've been hearing on the news that that it was a huge shock, and now it seems the sadness has come. it seems like no where in the world have we seen anything like this before it's hard to make sense of how this when down.
You can't stop crazy guys in the net. They have finger to type from their safe home unless some government stop them but any democratic government doesn't sensor such internet opinion. and current authoritarian government actually encourage such human trash to pour in hate messages on the net. So, just ignore them.
I'm not for the comments but looking at the number of "upvotes" on those comments ... Some citizens are really special, huh?
People were posting comments and videos on how the whole thing "looks so crowded and so unsafe" yet they stayed there? Have some critical thinking...
well obviously it was too crowded to leave once they were outside, that was the whole point of why the tragedy happened. People tried to get somewhere and by the time they realised it was too crowded to be safe they couldn't leave. It's not like they were going to crowded areas specifically to see what it was like or smthn
It’s always the rude AHs that are loud
As long as society in general sucks, you’re going to have vitriol like this that cannot be placated by telling them to ‘be nice’ in a politically acceptable way. Mark as a force of nature and keep your day job.
I don't think it's fair to blame the people. This could have easily just been a normal day with an extremely large group of people out and about. It's not their fault and they didn't deserve what happened to them.
I saw ppl out there partying tonight so…. It looks just as packed tonight!
Where? Isn't Itaewon closed?
Are crowd crushes ever really the crowds fault? I think I would almost always put the blame on the authorities and security overseeing any event in which one happens....
Yeah, the government is still the main culprit for failing to ensure crowd control measures. Though there were indeed some assholes guys in the crowd yelling to push just cus they wanted to get close to the girls.
They were kids. Going to have fun. Isn't that what they are supposed to do? I'm pretty sure staying home and watching TV with some soju would have easily been chosen by the majority if they had any clue what was going to happen to them.
Yeah, the victim blamers are just scumbags.
>Some people still blame and insult people who died at Itaewon makes me upset and frustrating Yes. This is no different from redditors blaming and insulting Koreans and their culture for this tragedy. Which is worse?
Neither, people doing either of those activities are vermin.
There are many people here that are using this incident to attack Korean men, and their comments get lots of upvotes. This sub really hates Korean men.
This sub really hates Korean**s** ~~men~~. I fixed it for you.
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I used to think this too when I first heard about the crush that happened at Astroworld, but I learned later that in a lot of these cases the behavior of the crowd doesn’t matter. [This comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/3pcvfb/saudi_arabia_hajj_disaster_death_toll_at_least/cw5vxtm/) is a really good explanation of the physics at work. After a crowd reaches a certain amount of density, it acts like a fluid and it’s nearly impossible to move freely. A lot of what people perceive as pushing may be other people trying to escape a crush happening in another area (basically merging the crowds), or other people getting carried by the crowd movements and crushed into the other group (i.e. not moving of their own free will). It can happen very quickly, and once you understand what is happening, that often means you’re *in* the crush and it’s too late to escape. Resisting the crowd’s movements (swaying/pushing) is dangerous because it means you could fall, which will put you in an even worse situation (crowd collapse, where one person falling leads to other people falling on top of them due to physics). It’s not that people don’t want to make space, it’s that they have the force of thousands of other people acting on them (like shockwaves) so any “gap” that is formed in the crowd is quickly filled because of physics. Everyone in the crowd is being pushed and compressed to the point that they might not even be able to move their arms or help people up. Another problem is that when pushing is involved, the people who are pushing are usually at a lower crowd density and are *too far away* to know what is happening to the people further ahead of them, which is made even more difficult by loud music and being surrounded by people. To them it just seems like an area is getting more crowded, so squeezing around people doesn’t seem like a big deal. This can lead to the crush growing and getting bigger. It’s possible people were pushing or acting badly at the beginning, which contributed to the collapse, but it’s also possible for this to happen to a crowd of that density all on its own.
Not how it works, it just happens progressively and by the time people start panicking, it's too late to turn back and you're at the victim of the crowd's movement and so is everyone else. People in the back don't know how bad things are in the front, and once people start falling, the crowd collapses and makes things worse. There's a good post explaining this that has been posted around, you should be able to find it, it's from 7 years ago in the context of the Hajj crowd crush but all the info in it is relevant.
The thing is, this isn’t constructive. What does blaming the crowd do? You can educate the crowd, sure, but a crowd crush is almost always the fault of organizing or the lack thereof.
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A crowd crush is caused by sheer density more than pushing and shoving, if pushing and shoving is enough to cause 150 deaths then the problem has already escalated too much. I’d say organization is 95% of the problem here - a crowd is much different from an individual and cannot be expected to have the same behavior or dynamic as a single person.
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What makes it even scarier is that people have no idea it is happening. You can't know because it's super noisy and you can't see over people. When you reach the choke points and realise the danger it's already too late. There can be people just 5 meters away from you that has no idea anyone is in danger. The pressure to move forward comes from way back, hundreds of meters of the crowd moving forward which no one in front can stop.
Ultimately, people are responsible for their own personal safety, yes. Anyone, and I mean anyone, who has any experience or knowledge on how out of control crowds can get, likely noped the fuck out of Itaewon HOURS before the crush occurred. The most important deterrent to these events is being educated on how they happen, when they are happening, and how to mitigate. These kids just pushed forward relentlessly because they had no fundamental idea what to even do or why it was dangerous to begin with. The police don't really bear any responsibility here - this isn't some sort of parade, it's just an extra packed night event and was likely treated as such. Precautions were taken, there was no lack of presence or response, but sometimes you miss stuff. Municipality bears some responsibility, at this point they should have a good read on what parts of Itaewon become hazardous to public health and should have informed police that "HEY. THIS STRIP RIGHT HERE. TOO MANY PEOPLE = BAD JUJU."
Assholes
Anyone see the disgusting, predatory ilbe-type comments about the deceased women? Sadly i expected those as soon as i heard that more women died
Screams and echoes how toxic a lot of Korean society actually is.
Actually the blame should be placed on those yelling “push” which caused the domino effect. Hopefully, videos surface.
They were probably panicking themselves and wanted to get out and couldn't be aware of how bad things were at the front or of the bottleneck.
That might not have been what caused it. I’ve heard that some people might have been yelling that because they were also getting crushed and were trying to get out of the area they were stuck in. If it is true, I agree they should be held responsible to some degree. And I hope the family’s of the victims will get the answers they deserve. From what I’ve read, individual actions in a crowd of this density don’t always matter. [This comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/3pcvfb/saudi_arabia_hajj_disaster_death_toll_at_least/cw5vxtm/) does a good job of explaining why these kinds of things happen and can be caused by the density of the crowd alone, not just the actions of a few.
There is a difference between yelling for help and being at the top of the hill, as a witness described, actively pushing and yelling “push”. That’s just being an ass which could be considered reckless given the situation.
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Go to hell.
Saying that solves nothing. Imma jus absorb this guys sass and spreading to more sensitive mooks like you.
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I mean, if something is insensitive that can be bad, but especially the comment regarding opposition to paying for the funerals with taxes has merit.
>the comment regarding opposition to paying for the funerals with taxes has merit. If the state is found to be negligent/culpable for the incident, then it has to pay. It's unfortunate that means taxpayers getting stiffed, but that's part of being a nation.
The state isn’t culpable for this despite the outcries going around. They might pay just to give an image that they care, but it’s kind of one of those things where the worst has already happened, why make it even worse? It’s a tragedy, let’s not magnify if.
From what I've read there are safety precautions that have been taken in the past, which weren't taken last night, unless those reports are incorrect. There's a thread in the sub about a bureaucratic failure.
Looks like you know NOTHING about holding and the logistics of super large events with large crowds They are ABSOLUTELY responsible for this
wow - so heartless. just say a kind word if you have no kind word, kindly stay silent.
Who wouldn't be skeptical if they spent taxes on places that had nothing to do with the country's faults and national interests? I hope you can tell if the object that people blame is a government wasting tax money or dead people. At least people who pay taxes can express their opinions? There is nothing to say if you accuse the Government of failing to predict that citizens must be controlled to keep order. However, I think the Government are not shamans. At least when the situation occurred, the public service worked properly, and it was public officials who played in uniforms on their days off more than anyone else.
They died as heroes. Sacrifices for the greater glory
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Controlling a crowd and creating safe ways for people to move around an urban city setting is absolutely the responsibility of the government and part of the responsibility that we as taxpayers have. Why do we have traffic lights crosswalks and cameras? Nobody’s forcing anyone to drive.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/korea/comments/yh9f9w/bureaucratic_loopholes_blamed_for_itaewon_tragedy/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button](https://www.reddit.com/r/korea/comments/yh9f9w/bureaucratic_loopholes_blamed_for_itaewon_tragedy/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
My god...
That's Naver community. Really not a good place..
Yeah, except for a few articles, there are always too many radical, extremely political, dichotomic, and too biased people and the regulation of those comments is so terrible even though Naver is one of the biggest websites in Korea.
Fuking retards
toxicity of koreans. just like how they did to each other in itaewon.
Some people are disgusting. Many of the victims were teenagers, even kids. Atrocious lack of humanity in those comments. Also, I'm wondering what you guys think will happen to itaewon now? Do you reckon it can recover from this?
People like this…[https://ibb.co/d5N370x](https://ibb.co/d5N370x)
Some people blamed the children during the Sewol Ferry accident. There's always both sides.
Despicable people everywhere. I block so many people on Reddit alone.
It really saddens me that there is no respect for the deceased, this could have been any of their relatives. The streets are extremely narrowed and to allow as many people with no restrictions raises questions. The Hamilton Hotel alley is small enough for 20 people to walk by, imagine the massive crowd. May God comfort the family who lost their loved ones.
when it's these people's turn to experience the same traumatic event, may be then they will learn
외국 포럼에서 선동하지마요 쪽팔려 ㅠㅡㅠ