First calls to police made four hours before Seoul Halloween crush turned deadly
The first calls to police about the crush in Seoul that killed more than 150 people came in four hours before the incident turned fatal.
Transcripts of the 11 emergency calls made in the hours before reveal the growing fear of revellers and how they urged police to intervene as the Halloween party descended into chaos and tragedy.
The first warning of a possible deadly surge was made at 6.34pm on Saturday evening, roughly four hours before the crush became deadly.
National Police Commissioner General Yoon Hee-keun acknowledged on Tuesday that crowd control at the scene was “inadequate”, and revealed police received multiple reports of possible accidents on the night of the disaster.
The interior minister and the city mayor also apologised as experts said proper crowd and traffic control could have prevented, or at least reduced, the surge.
The transcripts, released to media, give a chilling prediction of how the tragedy would unfold.
“Looks like you can get crushed to death with people keep coming up here while there’s no room for people to go down,” someone said in that first call to police.
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Seoul: How did Halloween turn deadly?
“I barely managed to leave but there are too many people, looks like you should come and control.”
Saturday’s crush killed 156 people, many in their teens and 20s, and injured another 157 as partygoers flooded the narrow alleyways of Itaewon to celebrate the first mostly unrestricted Halloween in three years.
Police received 10 further calls, all reporting that there were too many people, before things were known to have turned fatal.
South Korea’s police chief feels ‘heavy responsibility’ over Halloween stampede
The transcripts seem to confirm the accounts of witnesses, who said they saw some police directing traffic on the main road but few or no officers in the crowded pedestrian areas.
Roughly 100,000 people were estimated to be in Itaewon on Saturday, an area known for its hills and narrow alleys.
Authorities say there were 137 police officers there at the time.
Personal objects left by victims and survivors of the tragedy have been gathered in hopes that the owners, or their friends and family, will retrieve them
Another transcript from a call made at 8:33pm read: “People are falling down on the streets, looks like there could be an accident, it looks very dangerous.”
The latest call released by the police came in at 10:11pm, just minutes before people who were packed into one particularly narrow and sloping alley began to fall over each other.
“(People) will get crushed to death here. It’s chaotic,” the transcript of that call says, noting that screams were heard over the phone.
Read more: K-Pop singer and actor Lee Jihan, 24, killed in Seoul Halloween crowd crush
Police went to the scene for four out of the 11 calls, an official told reporters.
It was not immediately clear why they did not deploy officials to the other calls or what safety measures they took after arriving.
“Those things are all under inspection now, so it’s difficult for me to answer at this point,” a National Police Agency official said.
National Police Agency Commissioner Yoon Hee-geun
“The police will speedily and rigorously conduct intensive inspections and investigation on all aspects without exception to explain the truth of this accident,” police commissioner Yoon told a news conference earlier.
As police began investigating how so many people were killed, Prime Minister Han Duck-soo said the probe would also cover whether government agencies’ on-site responses were appropriate.
President Yoon Suk-yeol has declared a week of national mourning and called for better safety measures to manage crowds even when there is no central organising entity.
The festivities in Itaewon did not have a central organiser, which meant government authorities were not required to establish or enforce safety protocols.
New pictures show the moment of impact as an Israeli missile hit a Beirut apartment block and exploded.
The block was one of five buildings destroyed by airstrikes on Friday alone.
Israel launched airstrikes in the southern suburbs of Beirut in a fourth consecutive day of intense attacks.
There were no immediate reports of casualties.
An Associated Press photographer captured a sequence of images showing an Israeli bomb approaching and hitting a multi-storey apartment building in Beirut’s Tayouneh area.
Richard Weir, a senior crisis, conflict and arms researcher at Human Rights Watch, reviewed the close-up photos to determine what type of weapon was used.
“The bomb and components visible in the photographs, including the strake, wire harness cover, and tail fin section, are consistent with a Mk-84 series 2,000-pound class general purpose bomb equipped with Boeing’s joint directed attack munition tail kit,” he told AP.
Pics: AP
Smoke covers a building that collapses following the strike. Pic: AP
Deadly strikes as bombardment stepped up
Israel stepped up its bombardment this week – an escalation that has coincided with signs of movement in US-led diplomacy towards a ceasefire.
The Israeli military said its fighter jets attacked munitions warehouses, a headquarters and other Hezbollah infrastructure. It issued a warning on social media identifying buildings ahead of the strikes.
Meanwhile, an Israeli airstrike killed five members of the same family in a home in Ain Qana in the southern province of Nabatiyeh, Lebanon’s state media said.
The report said a mother, father and their three children were killed but didn’t provide their ages.
Keep up with all the latest news from the UK and around the world by following Sky News
Three other Israeli strikes killed six people and wounded 32 in different parts of Tyre province on Friday, also in south Lebanon, the report said.
Video footage also showed a building being struck and turning into a cloud of rubble and debris that billowed into Horsh Beirut, the city’s main park.
Residents check the site of the airstrike in Tayouneh, Beirut. Pic: AP
More than 3,200 people have been killed in Lebanon during 13 months of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah – most of them since mid-September.
About 27% of those killed were women and children, according to Lebanon’s health ministry.
Israel dramatically escalated its bombardment of Lebanon from September, vowing to cripple Hezbollah and end its barrages in Israel.
Friday’s strikes come as Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister has asked Iran to help secure a ceasefire in the war between Israel and Hezbollah.
The prime minister appeared to urge Ali Larijani, a top adviser to Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, to convince the militant group to agree to a deal that could require it to pull back from the Israel-Lebanon border.
Iran is a main backer of Hezbollah and for decades has been funding and arming the Lebanese militant group.
On Thursday, Eli Cohen, Israel’s energy minister and a member of its security cabinet, said that prospects for a ceasefire with Lebanon were the most promising since the conflict began.
The Washington Post reported Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was rushing to advance a Lebanon ceasefire to deliver an early foreign policy win to his ally, US President-elect Donald Trump.
“Super high-IQ revolutionaries” who are willing to work 80+ hours a week are being urged to join Elon Musk’s new cost-cutting department in Donald Trump’s incoming US government.
The X and Tesla owner will co-lead the Department Of Government Efficiency (DOGE) with former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy.
And in a post on X, the official DOGE account put out a call to arms for people to sign up and help “dismantle government bureaucracy”.
The post said: “We are very grateful to the thousands of Americans who have expressed interest in helping us at DOGE.
“We don’t need more part-time idea generators.
“We need super high-IQ small-government revolutionaries willing to work 80+ hours per week on unglamorous cost-cutting.
“If that’s you, DM this account with your CV. Elon & Vivek will review the top 1% of applicants.”
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Elon Musk speaking at an event held at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate. Pic: AP Photo/Alex Brandon
In a reply to an interested party, Mr Musk suggested the lucky applicants would be working for free.
“Indeed, this will be tedious work, make lost of enemies & compensation is zero,” the world’s richest man wrote.
“What a great deal!”
When announcing the new department, President-elect Donald Trump said Mr Musk and Mr Ramaswamy “will pave the way for my administration to dismantle government bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure federal agencies”.
Mr Musk has previously made clear his desire to see cuts to “government waste” and in a post on his X platform suggested he could axe as many as three-quarters of the more than 400 federal departments in the US, writing: “99 is enough.”
At least 10 people have been killed after a fire broke out at a retirement home in northern Spain in the early hours of this morning, officials have said.
A further two people were seriously injured in the blaze at the residence in the town of Villafranca de Ebro in Zaragoza, according to the Spanish news website Diario Sur.
Two people remain in a critical condition following the blaze. Pic: AP
They remain in a critical condition, while several others received treatment for smoke inhalation.
Firefighters were alerted to the blaze at the residence – the Jardines de Villafranca – at 5am (4am UK time) on Friday.
Several residents were treated for smoke inhalation. Pic: AP
Those who were killed in the fire died from smoke inhalation, Spanish newspaper Heraldo reported.
The residence is home to 82 elderly residents.
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The blaze started in one of the rooms, Fernando Beltran, the national government’s top official in the region, told reporters.
All of the victims were elderly residents, he added.
Relatives wait for news outside the care home. Pic: AP
Fire crews, paramedics and police officers remain on site, said a spokesperson for the regional government of Aragon who confirmed the fatalities.
It took firefighters several hours to extinguish the blaze, they said.
The cause of the fire is unknown and is being investigated.
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