I was a kid in Korea when this happened, I remember watching this news vividly. My mom went to this department store before as well when we were living in Seoul. She was super shocked when this happened.

My husband almost got a job at IBM but he turned them down. He said he’s glad he did.

My Korean friend who frequently visits that area in Itaewon stated that they should have closed smaller roads like where the stampede happened. Also there weren’t enough police presence to control the crowd, since they stopped 의경 program(mandatory military service that can be replaced as serving as police force) and just less police force in general. That area was also frequently patrolled by US military until the base moved to pyeong taek permanently away from Yongsan.

So overall crowd control wasn’t enough, plus covid restrictions lifted at Itaewon, plus Halloween plus small hilly road caused all this man made disaster.

Well how are you gonna get around without cars in US unless there’s public infrastructure?🫠 In the city it’s livable without cars but suburbs you honestly can’t live without cars. And electric vehicles are quite expensive to obtain.