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Seoul, Nov. 2 (BNA): More than 400 people were killed in October in a series of crowd-related disasters in Asia, when a bridge filled with revelers collapsed in India, crushed Halloween parties in the South Korean capital, and spectators fled a stadium in Indonesia after it launched Police tear gas.
The dynamics in the three situations were distinct, although experts say poor planning and crowd management contributed to the disasters in Indonesia and South Korea. In India, authorities are investigating whether a recently repaired bridge has been properly inspected, according to the Associated Press (AP).
In Seoul, 156 people died when more than 100,000 flocked to the popular nightlife district of Itaewon on Saturday to celebrate Halloween, the first since the country’s strict COVID-19 restrictions were lifted.
The narrow, steep alleys in the area became clogged with people, resulting in what experts call “crowd disturbance”. This is when people are so huddled together that they don’t have complete control over their movements, and the crowd moves like a continuous object.
“It does not require anyone to misbehave, nor does it require anyone to push aggressively or on purpose,” said Milad Hajjani, a researcher at Australia’s University of New South Wales in Sydney.
Hagani, who has studied more than 275 crowd-related tragedies dating back to 1902, said it’s well-documented that when crowd densities reach levels estimated at the Itaewon celebration, people will fall, resulting in a domino effect.
But he said it can also be prevented.
Seoul authorities have come under fire for having 137 officers on hand Saturday to deal with such a large crowd. Officials regularly send more police to control protests in the capital.
Yoon Hee-kyun, commissioner-general of the Korea National Police Agency, said in a televised press conference Tuesday that he feels “grave responsibility” for the loss of life.
Al-Haqqani said that by looking at past celebrations, and putting an end to the COVID-19 restrictions, authorities could easily have expected large crowds.
More important than the additional police, he said, the South Korean authorities could have hired crowd control experts to monitor the flow of people and prevent the area from overcrowding as they did.
Lessons from well-researched tragedies such as the Love Parade disaster in Germany in 2010, in which 21 people died trying to break out of an area through a bottleneck, he said, make crowd disturbances to be expected when experts watch.
“It is really disappointing to see that despite all the expert experience, all the studies, all the conclusions and everything that has been done, it happened again in another country, in another place, and it actually led to the death of many people,” Haghani said.
Indonesia is still investigating the October 1 tragedy at a soccer field, which claimed 135 lives, including dozens of children. Police fired tear gas at the stadium, with some gates closed, after some of the 42,000 crowd poured onto the stadium, prompting them to rush to the exits causing an outbreak.
Suhatman Ramli, head of Indonesia’s global safety organization, told The Associated Press that the case showed what could happen without a proper risk management plan and courses of action in the event of an emergency.
“These plans should include evacuation methods and crowd management to control panic situations,” Ramli said.
Police have already said that the Kanjuruhan Stadium in Malang city did not have a proper operating certificate and that criminal charges would be brought against six people for negligence, including the three police officers who allowed or ordered the officers to use tear gas.
Authorities removed police chiefs in East Java province and Malang district and suspended other officers for violating professional ethics.
A fact-finding team set up by President Joko Widodo found tear gas was the main cause of the tragedy, a conclusion Haghani said was not surprising.
He said: “Experience has proven that tear gas in the sports stadium is a recipe for disaster, because it excites crowds and creates a tendency to fight in the crowd, and more aggressive behavior.”
After the collapse of a newly repaired suspension bridge in the Indian state of Gujarat at the weekend, which killed 134 people, authorities announced the arrest of nine people, including managers of the bridge operator.
The 143-year-old bridge reopened four days before it collapsed on Sunday under the weight of hundreds of people celebrating during the Hindu holiday season.
Security video of the disaster showed it shaking violently and people trying to hold onto its cables and metal fencing before the aluminum walkway came out and crashed into the river.
The bridge was split in the middle and its corridor was overhanging and its cables were cut.
Investigations are still ongoing, but a local official told the Indian Express that the company reopened the bridge without first obtaining a “fitness certificate”.
All three October disasters are reminders of the variety of ways authorities have a responsibility to ensure public safety, said Dirk Helbing, a professor of computational social sciences at ETH Zurich University who studies crowd dynamics.
“In the past decades, science has provided many new ideas and tools to contribute to the safety and management of the masses,” he said. “I hope this knowledge spreads quickly and thus helps to avoid disasters in the future.”
HF