By Eloi Passot
Posted 3 hours ago, updated 1 hour ago
Relief operation in Seoul, October 30th. KIM HONG-JI / Portal
DECRYPTION – 153 people died in a mass movement in South Korea on Saturday. A very high human toll that can be explained by several factors.
“Carried away by the crowd jumping up and dancing…” sang Edith Piaf: a “mad farandole”, the crowd? Unfortunately, it can become a place of chaos and death as evidenced by the tragedy that occurred in Seoul, South Korea on Saturday October 29th. While thousands of people took to the streets for Halloween, a dense crowd formed on a steep street in Itaewon district. A huge onslaught then left at least 153 dead and 134 injured, ranking the event among the top three deadliest mass movements in the last 10 years. How can such a phenomenon be so deadly?
“Most of the time, when people die in a crowd, they’re not trampled on, they’re suffocated,” explains Mehdi Moussaïd, a researcher at the Max Planck Institute in Berlin and a specialist in crowd behavior. The press initially spoke of “cardiac arrest” for Seoul. But this term is used by the authorities…
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