One Year After Tragedy, a Subdued Halloween in Itaewon

       The authorities in Seoul were out in force over the weekend, but the crowds in the typically bustling neighborhood were sparse.

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       Photographs by Chang W. Lee

       Text by Inyoung Kang

       Reporting from Seoul

       Oct. 29, 2023

       Seoul marked a somber anniversary over the weekend, a year after nearly 160 people died in a crowd surge in Itaewon, a popular nightlife district in the city.

       Oct. 29, 2022, had started as a long-awaited Halloween celebration — the first in several years in South Korea that was free of pandemic restrictions. A mass of revelers and a bottleneck of human traffic in a cramped alley that night led to catastrophe, and a national outpouring of grief and questions about why the authorities were unable to prevent it.

       This year, the gathering in Itaewon was much smaller. Several neighborhoods in Seoul saw an outsized police presence.

       Emergency vehicles and police cars lined the main street in Itaewon on Saturday night. The authorities had deployed additional personnel to help manage pedestrian traffic in several nightlife areas over the weekend.

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       Earlier in the week, a memorial to the victims was unveiled in the alley. Lee Hyo-suk, whose daughter Jeong Ju-hee, 30, had died in the crowd crush, cried as she approached the plaque on Thursday.

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       The increased police presence was visible on Saturday in the alley where the crowd crush had occurred last year.

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       Officers directed traffic, but the neighboring bars remained largely empty in the early hours of the evening.

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       The victims’ families honored their loved ones at a temporary memorial in front of Seoul City Hall on Saturday. They bowed 159 times — for all of the victims — in front of photographs and food they had brought as offerings for the deceased. Many parents had prepared their children’s favorite snacks, like pizza, coffee and tteokbokki, or spicy rice cakes.

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       There was increased security along many of the streets, alleyways and stairs in Itaewon ahead of Halloween this year.

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       Last year, detectives in Itaewon had largely focused on cracking down on illegal drug use and failed to help with crowd control. That changed this year.

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       A wall in the alleyway was covered with messages and flowers on Saturday evening.

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       Barricades were installed in parts of the street in Itaewon in an effort to better control the crowd in both directions.

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       People wearing Halloween masks returned to the neighborhood, though in far fewer numbers than last year.

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       Officers patrolled the main street in Itaewon on Saturday to direct pedestrian traffic.

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       Police buses along the main street.

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       A family member touched a victim’s photograph at the temporary memorial at Seoul City Hall on Monday. Most of the people who died were in their 20s and 30s.

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       Chang W. Lee is a staff photographer for The Times. He was a member of the staff that won two 2002 Pulitzer Prizes: one for Breaking News Photography and the other for Feature Photography. Follow him on Instagram @nytchangster. More about Chang W. Lee

       Inyoung Kang is the day editor in the Washington bureau. More about Inyoung Kang

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