Photo: Prime Minister Kim Min-seok (far left) attends the memorial for the Itaewon disaster with leaders of major political parties. Credit: Yonhap News.
Three years since the crowd crushing event in Itaewon 이태원 that killed 159, the South Korean government is reckoning with the true cause of the disaster. On October 23, the internal audit by the Office of Government Policy Coordination 국무조정실 concluded that the cause of the October 29, 2022 disaster was the lack of police force dedicated to the annual street party for Halloween, caused by the diversion of personnel toward the newly relocated Office of the President and the presidential residence to the nearby Yongsan 용산 district.
The audit found that Yongsan Police Station 용산경찰서 had no crowd control plan for the 2022 street fair, although it had the plan for the street fair in 2021. Instead, it dedicated most of its manpower to guarding the Office of the President, citing the increased number of protests in the area. The presidential office relocation was one of the first and most controversial initiatives of the coup-plotting former president Yoon Suk-yeol 윤석열, who is now facing charges for insurrection. (See previous coverage, “Yoon Moves out of the Blue House.”)
On October 29, the Ministry of Interior and Safety 행정안전부 held a memorial for the Itaewon disaster, in the first official memorial of the incident by the government. The Yoon administration had suppressed the public memorial of the disaster, fearing that a public commemoration may lead to a large-scale anti-government movement as it did for the Park Geun-hye 박근혜 administration in the wake of the Sewol Ferry disaster 세월호 참사 in April 2016.
