'People grabbed my arms & legs asking me to save them': Itaewon club staff on what happened during crowd crush

A survivor saw 'five or six layers' of people stacked on top of each other in the aftermath, and noted that there were some who had lost consciousness.

Lee Wei Lin | October 30, 2022, 02:28 PM

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[Editor's note, Oct. 30 8:30pm: According to crowd safety expert G. Keith Still, who spoke to The Washington Post, what happened in Itaewon can be described as a crowd crush or surge.

It happens when people are packed together in a confined space and movement causes the crowd to fall over.

A stampede implies that people had place to run, which was not the case in Itaewon.

This article has been updated with the correct term.]

Eyewitness accounts have shed some light on what happened during the tragic crowd crush in Itaewon, Seoul.

Korean broadcaster MBC spoke to survivors of the incident, along with a club employee who watched the devastation unfold.

"Five or six layers" of people who had fallen down

One survivor spoke of how he tried to help those who had fallen in the midst of the crowd crush.

He and his friends saw "five or six layers" of people stacked on top of each other, and noted that there were some who had lost consciousness.

In a separate interview, a woman recounted hearing people calling for help or crying.

"Please don't push"

A club employee also spoke to MBC, as he recalled hearing people in the crowd saying "Please don't push", while others shouted "Hey, push!".

He spoke of people "collapsing and fainting" near the entrance of his workplace, but could not help them as he was pushed too far back to do so.

The man continued:

"People grabbed on to my arms and legs, but I couldn't do anything [for them] because I was alone.

They grabbed on to my arms and legs asking me to save them, but..."

The interview clip ended as the man sniffed and seemingly wiped tears from his eyes.

Top screenshots from MBC & @yusoy26 on Twitter