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Some of South Korea's opposition politicians are blaming the government for the tragedy that claimed the lives of over 150 partygoers on Oct. 29.

Not worryingly large

On Oct. 29, crowds flocked to the Itaewon district of Seoul looking to celebrate Halloween, packed into a narrow street lined with restaurants and nightclubs. The crowds would become alarmingly dense, eventually resulting in a crowd crush which left many swept under the crowd and succumbing to injury.

According to South Korea's Yonhap News Agency, Interior and Safety Minister Lee Sang-min had initially said that the police force was scattered due to riots and demonstrations across the capital on Oct. 29.

According to Crisis 24, there had been as many as four demonstrations planned for Oct. 29.

Lee had also said that the crowd at this year's Halloween celebrations was not "worrying large", when compared to previous years.

A Bloomberg column also reported him as saying that the tragedy could not have been solved "by deploying police or firefighters in advance".

Prime Minister Han Duck-soo, according to the BBC, played down the role of authorities, saying that the celebrations in Itaewon had no overall organiser, it was a "difficult to have safety control in advance". 

But this has been disputed by Lee Jae-myung, the leader of the Democratic Party of Korea. Lee also ran in the 2022 presidential election, where he narrowly lost.

Yonhap quotes him as saying that the tragedy was "clearly a man-made disaster and a disaster that derives from the government's incompetence and carelessness."

He accused the government of forcing the police to take the blame, when ultimate responsibility lay with politicians.

Police responsibility and investigation

The police however have accepted responsibility for the tragedy. The Korea Herald reported that National police chief Yoon Hee-keun had said he felt "heavy responsibility" for the incident, bowing at a press conference.

He also said the police received 11 emergency calls in the run-up to the incident, and that "it is judged that the response in the field handling emergency calls was insufficient".

The BBC reports that the first of those 11 calls was as early as 6:34 PM, with the caller saying that the situation was "chilling", and that the police needed to take control of the situation. But this did not happen, and the only attempts to control the crowd were apparently made by local volunteers, not the police.

Yoon promised that an internal investigation would be held into the police's response.

A Reuters report indicates that there were as many as 100,000 people in the area, but only 137 police. This is in contrast to the nearly 4,000 police deployed for a union protest earlier in the day, where numbers were also in the tens of thousands.

Leadership and blame

President Yoon Suk-yeol, according to Bloomberg, was already struggling in the polls prior to the incident, and is under pressure to handle the situation appropriately. A comparison was drawn to the Sewol Ferry Disaster of 2014, where public support for then-President Park Guen-hye tanked, setting the stage for her eventual impeachment.

President Yoon has declared a period of mourning, visiting the area, and sharing his struggles with grief. He has also given authorities access to additional funding to support victims and carry out additional works.

It was also said that he was enraged when he learnt of police inaction regarding the 11 emergency calls.

Bloomberg quotes a Seoul based academic saying that the tragedy was an opportunity for President Yoon to display leadership and competence, and that it could either result in Yoon being a target of blame and ouster, or becoming a hero.

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Top image via Jean Chung/ Getty Images