A string of safety measures being rolled out by the government shows how much of an impact the loss of 156 lives in last week’s Itaewon tragedy have had on Korean society. Prime Minister Han Duk-soo on Thursday said there will be a pan-government safety inspection on events where over 10,000 people are expected to partake, requesting regional government bodies to revamp their respective safety manuals. This was a reaction to the lack of safety measures and efforts by authorities to maintai

Social Affairs Nov. 3, 2022

While the entire nation has been fixated on the Halloween tragedy in Seoul over the weekend, families of two miners believed to be trapped at a mine in Bonghwa, North Gyeongsang Province, have been praying for their safe return for nearly 10 days. Thursday marks the ninth day since the zinc mine collapsed on Oct. 26. The two, aged 62 and 56, are thought to be in a vertical shaft some 170 meters underground. It is unclear whether they are alive. The rescue team had a minor breakthrough early

Social Affairs Nov. 3, 2022

  On the night of the Itaewon disaster on Saturday, 11 emergency calls were made to police that directly mentioned that people were being hurt or crushed, but the police were only dispatched to the scene a total of four times, police records show. While the police revealed the transcripts of those 11 calls, it was found later that a total of 79 emergency calls were made from the Itaewon area from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. The exact content of those calls has not yet been identified. Of the 11 emerg

Social Affairs Nov. 2, 2022

The tragedy that left at least 156 people dead in central Seoul occurred when thousands of Halloween revelers jammed into a narrow alley fell over in masses, piling up on top of each other around 10:15 p.m. on Saturday. On that fateful night, a total of 11 emergency calls had been made to local police warning explicitly of deadly crowding in Itaewon, police records show. The following are translated excerpts from the desperate calls made to the police as early as nearly four hours before the dis

Social Affairs Nov. 2, 2022

Prime Minister Han Duk-soo on Wednesday issued an apology for a joke he made during the previous day’s press conference related to the Itaewon tragedy. “No matter what the circumstances are, I apologize for making the people uncomfortable,” he said in a message that he relayed to reporters through the Prime Minister’s Office. During Tuesday’s foreign media briefing, Han became the subject of controversy for what was perceived by some as “light-hearted behavior

Social Affairs Nov. 2, 2022

The family of a Japanese teenager who died during the Saturday crowd crush in Itaewon, Yongsan-gu, Seoul, arrived in South Korea on Monday and identified the victim's body. Accompanied by officials from the Foreign Ministry, the family arrived at the funeral hall of the Seongnam Central Hospital in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province on Monday afternoon. They began the procedure of transporting the victim’s body back to Japan. Officials at the hospital said the family wished to carry out the

Social Affairs Oct. 31, 2022

Professional sports leagues across the country joined the nation in mourning the loss of 154 lives during Saturday night’s deadly crowd surge in Itaewon, Yongsan-gu, Seoul. Prior to the kickoff for game 2 of the 2022 Hana Bank FA Cup finals between Jeonbuk Hyundai Motors and FC Seoul on Sunday, the players, coaching staff and fans bowed their heads out of respect for victims. The game was won by the eventual champions Jeonbuk Hyundai Motors, who took the cup after a 3-1 victory. Profession

More Sports Oct. 31, 2022

Numerous festivals and events across the country have been cancelled or put on hold after Saturday's deadly crowd surge in Itaewon, in Yongsan-gu, Seoul that claimed 154 lives as of Monday. Seoul has designated a period of mourning for Yongsan-gu that will last until Dec. 31, cancelling all events that the city government had been slated to host. In case of festivals sponsored by the Seoul Metropolitan Government, officials will request the hosts to downsize the events. The 17th Busan Firew

Social Affairs Oct. 31, 2022

Of the 154 fatalities from last weekend’s Halloween crowd crush in Itaewon, nearly two thirds were women. As of Monday, a total of 98 women are confirmed to have been killed in the deadly human stampede, compared to 56 men. The significant gender gap has led many to wonder why the accident proved to be much more fatal to women than men. The gender ratio of the crowd at the time of the deadly crush remains unclear, but some medical experts say those with smaller body frames and less physica

Social Affairs Oct. 31, 2022

Many Koreans have a love-hate relationship with traditional shamans, or “mudangs” as they are called here. While it is not unusual to find a practitioner around the block, they are still widely frowned upon by the majority of the public. Jeong Ho-geun, a 58-year-old veteran actor better known as a shaman nowadays, has experienced such prejudice firsthand since he decided to become a shaman in 2014. His friends started dodging his calls and people left him “like the parting of t

People Oct. 29, 2022

Over 60 Vietnamese tourists who entered South Korea this month using the visa-free system have fallen out of contact with immigration authorities, raising suspicion that the individuals came here for illegal stay. Sixty-seven out of 1,600 Vietnamese tourists who came through Yangyang International Airport in Gangwon Province from Oct. 13-25 for packaged tours remain unaccounted for, as of Friday, according to the Korean Immigration Service. Earlier this week, Vietnamese media reported that its F

Social Affairs Oct. 28, 2022

Two-hundred and fifty-six. That's the number of people between age 10 and 20 that took their lives due to mental health problems last year. Of a total 13,205 deaths by suicide in 2021, some 5,258 had histories of mental health treatment, according to police data provided by Rep. Oh Young-hwan of the main opposition Democratic Party. The same data shows that the number of suicides aged 10-29 age groups jumped each year from 2019, with the figure for the latter marking 888 as of 2021. The figures

Social Affairs Oct. 24, 2022

The Korean Methodist Church’s court on Thursday upheld its earlier decision to suspend a pastor from his duties for two years for blessing sexual minorities in 2019. “According to the creed of the Methodist Church, praying in front of sexual minorities can be seen as advocating or agreeing with their actions,” the court said, on why it decided to deny the appeal made by Rev. Lee Dong-hwan, the 42-year-old pastor of Glory Jeil Church in Suwon, Gyeonggi Province. The decision was

Social Affairs Oct. 21, 2022

An attempted cyberattack that occurred during the recent outage of South Korea’s biggest messenger service KakaoTalk may have been the work of North Korean hackers, a news outlet has reported. According to Radio Free Asia, various individuals working in services related to the communist country, along with several North Korean defectors received an email claiming to have been sent by the Kakao tech service team on Sunday, as the extended outage that began Saturday took down most of the tec

North Korea Oct. 18, 2022

King Sejong of the Joseon era, or simply Sejong the Great, is arguably the Korean who has left the biggest mark on the nation’s history. Every single day, people across the country use the monarch’s creation --- Hangeul, the Korean writing system. How highly Koreans think of him can be seen in numerous instances. Among the many things named after him are a Seoul street, a city, a university, a performing arts center, a naval Aegis destroyer, a satellite and the country’s Antarc

Culture Oct. 7, 2022