Tragic Crowd Crush In Seoul: Why It Happened & How To Prevent It

It is sad to hear that on Halloween, a sudden crowd surge in the capital of South Korea, Seoul, resulted in the deaths of more than 150 people. So what caused this tragic accident, and what could you do to prevent yourself from getting into one?

The Halloween crowd crush happened in a populated and popular nightlife district, Itaewon, on October 30th. Investigators are still investigating the exact causes of the accident. However, police believe the deadliest part of the stampede to be in a small sloped alleyway in the district. The number of casualties in the accident is still unclear. So what could cause such a crowd surges?

Enough people gather in an area, causing a dense crowd, and physics turns into liquid dynamics. In such a case, one movement could turn into a massive wave spreading throughout. Reasons for a large group of people could gather up in a limited space could be because of things like concerts or even a busy rush hour.

The most deadly part of a crowd crush is the bottleneck effect. When too many people try to squeeze into a much smaller passageway, it causes people to be stuck and more piling upon them, which could cause suffocation. This problem got amplified by the sloped alleyway in the Seoul crowd crush because people on the higher end tumbled down, crushing the people at the lower ground.

So what could you do to prevent yourself from getting into a crowd crush? The easiest way is to stay home and avoid such large crowds altogether. However, sometimes, you find yourself in a too densely packed place when it’s already too late. In that case, the best way to avoid getting crushed comes down to the following four tips.

The first one is to stay standing. If you go under, people start tripping and piling upon you, which could cause fatal suffocation. Remember that in a dense crowd, you’re essentially a molecule of water in a bathtub. That leads to the second tip when you’re stuck in such a situation: Move with the flow. The momentum of thousands of people is too much for even the strongest, so resisting the crowd’s movement wouldn’t end well for you. Moving with the flow gives you a better chance of finding escape points. The third tip is to avoid hard surfaces. Issac Newton’s Laws of Motion suggest that a force you give would always have counter-force pushing back on you. The crowd movement passes through you, into the hard surface, and pushes back, possibly damaging your vital organs and even leading to unconsciousness.

The last tip when facing a dangerous crowd crush, maybe not surprisingly, is don’t panic. Panicking in a stampede could make situations fatal. Conserve your energy, try to find exit points in the crowd, or climb up to a safe place. Staying calm will allow alert thinking and a higher chance of surviving the crowd crush.

I hope you have learned helpful information from this article, though I hope you’ll never get to use it. And one last tip before you go, addressing what to do if you go under in a crowd. Crawl onto your side and into a fetal position, protect your head, and remember to let your elbows touch your knees, allowing space for breathing. Furthermore, use one arm to cover your side and protect your lungs and heart.

I believe that’s all for today, and may those who lost their lives in crowd crushes rest in peace. That’s the end of this production from the New News Newsminute. Thank you for reading, and remember to share this article so that more people know.