A year after South Korea’s Halloween crowd crush, victims’ families still seek justice: ‘Law won’t bring our children back’

A South African teacher of English at a primary school, who wished to be identified only as Stan, told local media his co-teachers had asked him if it would be appropriate to offer students Halloween activities this year as “it might still be a sensitive topic”.

Department stores, which typically put up Halloween decorations and set up pop-up booths, are not holding Halloween-related events this year, with supermarket chains also scaling back their Halloween products and refraining from Halloween-themed marketing events.

Authorities say they are taking extra security precautions to manage crowds for the Oct 27 to Nov 1 Halloween period.

The police will deploy 1,260 officers every day during the period at crowded areas such as Hongdae, Itaewon and Gangnam, with 16 narrow and crowded alleyways in Seoul also be closely monitored for crowds.

But questions remain whether South Korea has learned a lesson from the disaster, with experts pointing to South Koreans’ low safety awareness and inadequate disaster response systems that belie the country’s reputation as a highly industrialised country.

This summer saw record-breaking rainfall across the country, leaving more than 50 people dead and missing, as inadequate precautions and poor responses were blamed for the high casualties.

In July, 25 people died when their vehicles were trapped in a flooded underground tunnel in the southern city of Cheongju as authorities failed to close the traffic despite flood warnings.

This article was originally published on SCMP.