In the wake of the tragedy in Itaewon in South Korea on Saturday, the popular entertainment agency SM Entertainment, which houses K-pop groups like NCT, Red Velvet, aespa, Super Junior, EXO, SHINee among others, has cancelled their annual Halloween celebrations. For the unversed, Itaewon, one of the popular destinations in South Korea, witnessed thousands of people during Halloween celebrations which led to one of the most horrific incidents.
In a statement on late Saturday night following the tragic incident of crowd surge in Itaewon, SM Entertainment released a statement which read, “We are informing you that the live broadcast of the “SMTOWN WONDERLAND 2022” red carpet, which was scheduled to be streamed live for free today for KWANGYA CLUB ACE members on the global platform Beyond LIVE for approximately one hour starting from 6:15 p.m., has been cancelled. Because the “SMTOWN WONDERLAND 2022” event itself has been cancelled, there will be no livestream of the red carpet either. We ask for fans’ understanding.”
President Yoon Suk Yeol has officially announced the mourning period from October 30 – November 4 amid the Itaewon case. As per a report in Korea Herald, atleast 151 people died and more than 82 were injured in a “crowd crush in Itaewon, Yongsan-gu, central Seoul, according to fire authorities at 10:30 a.m. on Sunday. The fire department began to receive reports of patients having difficulty breathing at 10:22 p.m. on Saturday.”
It was reported that most fatalities were people in their 20s amongst whom 19 were foreigners who were dead. Videos and photos went viral on social media where people were providing CPR to several people who went into cardiac arrest due to crowd-crushing in Itaewon which is a central party spot. The report states, “A total of 848 personnel, including 364 firefighters, were mobilized to deal with the accident and 142 ambulances were deployed.”
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