Did lockdown contribute to Seoul’s Halloween tragedy?

At least 151 people were crushed or trampled to death in a narrow alley in the South Korean capital Seoul last night. That figure – which is expected to rise – makes it one of the worst peacetime disasters in the country’s history. President Yoon Suk-yeol has declared a national period of mourning. Both Rishi Sunak and Joe Biden have sent messages of sympathy.

The victims, many of whom were young women, were celebrating Halloween in the Itaewon entertainment district of the South Korean capital. Details of exactly what happened are sketchy, but it seems that a huge mass of people poured in to one of the area’s narrow alleyways, where panic provoked a stampede which led to those at one end of the street falling over. First came a cascade of partygoers, then a disaster.

It is likely that the immediate focus for the authorities will be on crowd management issues and questions such as how such a mass of people was allowed to get dangerously out of control – and why emergency services struggled to reach those in need.