How Halloween parties turned deadly in Seoul's popular Itaewon district

By Soo-hyang Choi, Daewoung Kim and Heekyong Yang

SEOUL (Reuters) -Young people flocking to Seoul's popular Itaewon district on Saturday for the first virtually unrestricted Halloween festivities in three years instead found themselves caught up in a deadly crush that killed at least 153 people.

The crowd of partiers, some still in their teens and many clad in Halloween costumes, was ready to enjoy the bars, nightclubs and restaurants where the revelry routinely spills over into narrow and often steep side streets.

But the intimacy of Itaewon's backstreets turned sinister this Halloween weekend.

Twenty-four hours before, there were already warning signs that the festivities were attracting dangerous numbers of people. On Friday night, a Reuters witness saw crowds in the area packed toe-to-toe at a Halloween street fair with booths for face-painting and selling candy and costumes.

A day later those crowds returned.

Officials say there was no single organised event that drew thousands of revellers to the cramped alleyways where so many young people, including at least 22 foreigners, would die.

But social media posts showed nightclubs and bars advertising Halloween events and promotions, including collaborations at some of the hottest clubs for special performances.

Officials are still investigating what prompted the crowd to surge, but witnesses and social media footage showed people squeezing into the streets for several blocks surrounding the alley where many of the deaths would occur.

Just before 10:20 p.m. (1320 GMT), chaos erupted, with police at times struggling to control the crowds, witnesses said.

People poured into one particularly narrow and sloping alley, even after it was already packed wall-to-wall. Social media footage showed some people trying to scale the sides of the buildings to escape the increasing pressure, as others shouted, cried or cursed.

When those at the top of the slope fell, it sent people below them toppling over others, witnesses said.

"We arrived around 10 p.m. to go to a club but then saw people falling on the street," said Moon Ju-young, 21. "Some were bleeding, others were crying out in pain."

One student from France, who asked not to be identified because of the trauma of the event, said he became lodged in a crush of people for about an hour and a half.

"I wanted to go to a safe place but it wasn't possible," he told Reuters. "I was just pushed by everyone and I just couldn't do anything."

He said he came out with chest pain and a hurt ankle, but felt sorry for those who were killed or more seriously injured, as well as the emergency workers who desperately tried to free people.