<div style="text-align: justify; "><span style="font-size: 1rem;"><b>At least 149 people have died in a crush as huge Halloween crowds surged into a narrow street in South Korea's capital, Seoul, officials say.</b></span><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify; ">At least 76 were injured in the incident in the Itaewon nightlife area which was holding its first unmasked Halloween celebrations since Covid.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Reports describe a desperate scene of people caught up in the crush piling on top of each other.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The cause of the disaster is still being investigated.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">After holding an emergency meeting, South Korea's President, Yoon Suk-yeol, ordered a task force to be set up to help treat the injured.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">He also launched an investigation into the cause of the crush.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Several world leaders have expressed their condolences. British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and French President Emmanuel Macron said their thoughts were with the people of South Korea.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The EU's chief diplomat, Josep Borrell, said he was deeply saddened and the US national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, pledged American support.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">While Halloween is not a big celebration in South Korea overall, Itaewon, a district with an international cultural feel, would have been a peak party location for the festival on Saturday.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Many young people were there, some of them dressed in Halloween costumes, out to party and go clubbing.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Instead, the area descended into chaos and people were left distraught and grieving as victims lay under blue sheets and emergency services did their work.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Videos from Itaewon show body bags placed on the streets, emergency workers performing CPR, and rescuers trying to pull out people trapped beneath others.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Jeon Ga-eul, 30, was having a drink at a bar at the moment the crush began.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"My friend said: something terrible is happening outside," she told AFP news agency. "I said: what are you talking about? And then I went outside to see and there were people doing CPR in the street."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Most of the dead were in their teens or 20s, said Choi Seong-beom, chief of Seoul's Yongsan fire department. Of the injured, 19 were seriously hurt and 57 lightly.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Two foreign nationals are among the dead and 15 foreigners were injured, he added.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The high number of casualties was a result of "many being trampled", the fire chief said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">One video appears to show hundreds of people packed tightly together in a narrow, sloping road in the district. In another, emergency responders try to pull out people from what appears to be a pile of bodies. Cries of distress can be heard.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Bodies were being sent to nearby gyms and hospitals to be identified by family members.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">All available emergency responders in Seoul have been mobilised, according to the National Fire agency.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">A doctor who administered first aid at the scene said that when he had first started performing CPR there were two victims but "the number exploded soon after, outnumbering the first responders".</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Some 100,000 revellers are said to have been in the area on Saturday evening.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Social media messages posted earlier in the evening showed some people remarking that the Itaewon area was so crowded that it felt unsafe.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">One witness, Park Jung-Hoon, told Reuters news agency that big crowds were normal for Christmas and fireworks celebration but "this was several ten-folds bigger than any of that".</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">A local journalist said that an emergency broadcast had been sent to every mobile phone in the Yongsan District urging citizens to return home as soon as possible due to "an emergency accident near Hamilton Hotel in Itaewon". BBC</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify; ">bnbd24/kh</div>