Tragedy in Seoul: when a mass gathering becomes dangerous and what to do if you find yourself in the middle of one

More of 150 people lost their lives due to injuries and suffocation in the popular Itaewon district, in central Seoul, after being trapped in the middle of a dangerous human avalanche on Saturday night.

Near 100, people – mostly teenagers and young people – had come to this neighborhood of narrow and steep alleys to celebrate Halloween, when the situation escaped out of control and turned into a tragedy.

Mounting evidence, experts, and a series of official apologies point to glaring flaws: local officials and police simply weren’t prepared for the crowds that had gathered. congregated and could not handle them once they came to the site.

On Tuesday, South Korea’s police chief said his emergency response ence was “inadequate”, in the first acknowledgment by officials that they did not do enough to prevent what happened.

But beyond the obvious need to control and manage events of this magnitude, what can we do if we are involved in a similar situation? Is there an effective way to protect yourself? And how can we know when an agglomeration becomes dangerous?

Fluid dynamics

“To begin with, there is a critical threshold of density”, G. Keith Still, an expert in crowd safety and professor at the University of Suffolk, in the United Kingdom, explains to BBC Mundo.

“Any situation in which there are more than 4 or 5 people per square meter, begins to be in that red zone of risk”, says the expert.

“As soon as people have physical contact with other people, on 2 or more sides, they have to be careful, but when they are surrounded and there is contact on all sides, it is already a critical situation,” he adds.

Other The way to calculate the density, especially if we are not tall enough to see how many people are around us in perspective, is to observe how the crowd moves.

“The crowd stops moving like a group of people where each The individual has autonomy and can control their movements, to act as if they were a fluid,” Martyn Amos, an expert on crowds and professor of computer and information sciences at the University of Northumbria, in the United Kingdom, explains to BBC Mundo.

“People essentially become particles that are at the mercy of physics, rather than depending on their own decisions. And that’s when the situation becomes dangerous”.

Amos explains that in the videos of the incident in Seoul you can see what is known as earthquakes or mass turbulence.

These they are waves of movement that are produced when people who are on the periphery of the agglomeration -and do not know what is happening ahead- push forward and transmit that force that is amplified in the crowd.

“When you feel that you cannot respect your personal space, it is time to leave”, adds Amos, and reminds us that in these situations it is always good to be guided by intuition.

“ Don’t be ashamed to walk out. Many stay to avoid being seen as weird or cowardly by others. But it is better to leave with your pride hurt, but alive: leave as soon as you start to feel uncomfortable”.

Go with the flow and stand tall

How to get out of the mass?

If we can do it, it is best to continue to the side that the current takes us, regardless of what leads us to a place we didn’t have in mind.

“It’s like when the current takes you out to sea. If you swim against it you will lose your energy and drown, but if you move sideways or diagonally, that can help you”, Amos points out, although that would not have been possible in Itaewon due to the peculiar shape of the terrain.

If you find yourself unable to move towards an exit, one thing you should try to do at all costs is stay on your feet.

If you’re in heels, get rid of your shoes, recommends Amos, because “If you trip and fall in a crowd there is a good chance that you will never be able to get up again and that other people will trip and fall on you (the so-called domino effect), and that there will be a collapse in the crowd that ends up creating a crowd. pile of corpses”.

Do not bend down to pick up something that you drop, it does not matter if it is the keys or the cell phone.

And for this very reason it is It is important to help anyone who falls down to get up: “ you are not only doing the morally right thing by helping another, but you are also avoiding a collapse in the crowd, and thus increasing your own chances of survival”, says the expert.

However, there are a very common cause of death in the middle of a human avalanche or stampede that is not related to tripping or falling.

It is possible to die standing up, due to suffocation.

Protective halo

For this reason, Amos recommends creating a buffer zone around oneself.

“Take your arm with your dominant hand, and create a sort of halo around you with your elbows to generate a bit of personal space”, he points out.

This it is key so that the chest can expand and contract when we breathe.

“Many die of compression suffocation. When you exhale, the mass of people can press so hard on the body that the chest cannot expand later to take in more air. That’s how you suffocate,” he clarifies.

However, there are times, as was probably the case in Seoul, when it’s too late to take action.

Many can work if they are “adopted when the density of people is lower, but when it comes to a point like Seoul, you may not even be able to raise your arms,” ​​says Sill.

For this reason, the expert emphasizes that we should be aware of what the place is like when we arrive, and leave when we notice that there is no longer enough space to move comfortably.

In the following video you will find tips on how to react to a human stampede: