The Itaewon Crush: A Tragedy We Should Never Let Happen Again

Itaewon is known for its festivity and diversity, especially during the holidays, including Halloween. In the usual Halloween seasons, crowds in their 20-30s would gather around Itaewon downtown, enjoying the night of the festival. Such a flourish in the festival is expected in Itaewon, and the self-employed of those areas also expected a boom for that night. What would’ve happened, was that the crowd was to be controlled in small numbers in streets, to control the people in the same area. Such enforcements were how the festival was sustained for the past years.

One hundred fifty-six people, mainly the youth, died in the Halloween festival on October 28th due to a crowd crush in Itaewon. Unfortunately, the Korean government tried to dodge obligations by saying there was no responsibility to anybody since there was no host for Halloween events on the night of the tragedy. However, article 34 of the Constitution states, "the state should make efforts to prevent disasters and protect the people from danger." Due to the government's insufficient actions, residents, business owners, and community members in Itaewon with the enormity of loss not only Itaewon Station, the World Food Culture Street area, and the surrounding commercial districts experienced no customers, resulting in a deficit.

Government intervention is inevitable to address the decline in sales on Itaewon streets, which has worsened due to the 10.29 accident. It is difficult to see the disaster and Covid-19 as the responsibility of companies and stores on Itaewon Road. Thus, the government should help owners compensate for the damage by subsidizing and reducing debt through low-interest rates. In addition, the government should introduce systems and laws to prevent the disaster from happening again and protect merchants through thorough suspension.

The tragedy in Seoul’s central Itaewon neighborhood has injured over 350 people, including 150 casualties. Due to this traumatic event, the Korean government officially proposed a condolence week from October 30th to November 5th. During this time, any form of entertainment, such as concerts, sports games, and films. Markedly, ticket sales for art performances have dropped more than 30%, and 20% for cinema ticket sales, according to data from the Korea Performing Arts and Korean Film Council (Kim). This crisis threatened to dampen the nation’s aggregate consumption. The crisis also severely impacted the Korean economy, where monetary policy was implemented to lower the interest rates to revive the inactive market. However, this also led to conspicuous consumption, causing a high inflation rate and deteriorating exports.
Following this, the Bank of Korea (BOK) announced that there would be a constant increase in interest rates to cut inflation. Under this situation, the entertainment sector's decrease in supply and demand hit the Korean economy hard. While this tragedy is becoming a hot issue in Korea, Korea once experienced a similar accident that resulted in the depression of its economy. In 2014 when the Sewol sinking snatched away many lives, Korea saw elevated economic costs. According to the Korea Economic Research Institute, the cost of direct and indirect monetary losses from the Ferry Sewol disaster was more than 2 trillion won.
Furthermore, the private economic damage caused by weak consumption was the highest at 1.8 trillion won. All these tragedies Korea has faced show how economically harmful a social issue is by manifesting resulting economic losses. Therefore, the Korean government and citizens are supposed to learn from past experiences and prevent future crises by considering these possible budgetary and social losses.
After the tragedy in Itaewon, thousands of Korean people brought their candles out, calling President Yoon Suk Yeol "the true culprit of the Itaewon disaster" near the Seoul city wall. The government's sanctions on the merchants during the pandemic have brought dissatisfaction and resentment among the people. Nevertheless, as the tragedy happened right after the official permission from the government to run their shop, as usual, people complained about the inevitable damage to their profits to the government, "We thought business was finally coming back after the pandemic, but now we have this, but I know I should not complain when I think of the victims and their families."
Instead of carefree recreation and a joyous festival on October 29th, 2022, a tragic stampede in Itaewon, Korea, traumatized the entire nation with more than 150 deaths, most of whom were in their twenties. While other large-scale disasters have occurred in Korea, no official stampedes have been reported. Yoon Seok-Yeol, President of the People's Power Party (PPP), has paid unprecedented visits to the final resting place of the Itaewon victims to express his heartfelt condolences for the loss of young lives in Itaewon as a result of the stampede. Suffocating debates over how much blame the government bears ensue, and the opposition DPK (Democratic Party of Korea) is adamant that the PPP's policy failed, as evidenced by the stampede.
The family members of the Itaewon stampede victim blame the Korean Government as they showed negligence in this current situation. One family member states that the members of the PPP dozed off during the meeting, and another party member stared down at their phone, disrespecting the family members. Another prominent mistake they made was publicly opening up about the state indemnity of 20 million Korean Won. Many family members felt this was disrespectful towards the lost, as it felt like they were 'pricing' the lost lives.