Seoul Halloween Tragedy Victims

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As officials begin their investigation into the deadly Halloween crowd crush in downtown Seoul on Saturday, the shock and anguish over the deaths of at least 154 victims reverberate across South Korea, and far beyond its borders.

A 19-year-old student from Hongseong who was saving money to study fashion design in Canada. A 24-year-old K-pop singer and actor who competed in a reality singing competition. A 20-year-old American from Kentucky on a study abroad semester in South Korea.

Most of the victims were in their 20s, and most of them were women, according to the Ministry of the Interior and Safety. Multiple teenagers were also killed, as were 26 foreigners: from Iran, China, Vietnam, Kazakhstan, Japan, Sri Lanka, the US, and more.

That night in Itaewon, a bumping nightlife district popular with young people and foreigners, people dressed up in costumes, excited to celebrate Halloween with COVID precautions eased for the first time in years. The revelries turned chaotic, then deadly. According to reports, around 10 p.m., the crowd started moving in different directions, pushing people into a narrow alley with a downward slope. People fell on top of each other, crushing the ones at the bottom.

“It looked like the graves of people piled upon one another,” a woman told Yonhap News Agency.

With funerals set to take place over the next few days, friends and family members are struggling to accept the sudden, horrific deaths of their loved ones.

Nabeela Ami found out that her friend Madina Sherniyazova, a 26-year-old Kazakhstani, was one of the victims from a friend group chat. She heard that Sherniyazova and her boyfriend were heading home from Itaewon on Saturday night. They were holding hands but lost their grip on each other in the crush. Sherniyazova did not make it.

Source: https://www.buzzfeed.com/clarissajanlim/itaewon-seoul-halloween-victims-south-korea

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