South Korean police admit 'heavy responsibility' for deadly Seoul crush
South Korea's police chief accepted "a heavy responsibility" for failing to prevent a crowd surge that killed more than 150 people during Halloween festivities in Seoul.
Yoon Hee Keun, commissioner general of the Korean National Police Agency, said on Tuesday that officers did not effectively handle earlier emergency calls about the impending disaster.
The admission came as the South Korean government faces growing public scrutiny over whether the crowd surge Saturday night in Seoul's Itaewon district -- a popular nightlife neighbourhood -- could have been prevented and who should take responsibility for the country's worst disaster in years.
"I feel a heavy responsibility as the head of one of related government offices," Yoon told a televised news conference. "Police will do their best to prevent a tragedy like this from happening again."
Yoon said an initial investigation had found that there were many urgent calls by citizens notifying authorities about the potential danger of a crowd gathering in Itaewon, but officers who had received those calls did not respond to them in a satisfactory manner.
Yoon said police have subsequently launched an intense internal probe to look deeper into the officers' handling of the emergency calls and other issues like their on-the-spot response to the crowd surge in Itaewon that night.
The disaster — which left at least 156 people dead and 151 others injured — was concentrated in a downhill, narrow alley in Itaewon.
Witnesses described people falling on one another, suffering severe breathing difficulties and falling unconscious.
They also recalled rescuers and ambulances failed to reach the cramped alleys in time because the entire Itaewon area was extremely packed with slow-moving
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