The mayor apologised to the bereaved on Tuesday after a stampede by fans hoping to attend a music concert left 11 dead and injured 98 in the South Korean town of Sangju.
”I’ll take full responsibility” for the accident, Sangju mayor Kim Keun-soo said at a mortuary set up next to City Hall where he met relatives of the victims.
Another city official, Kim Seok-hee, said the city will pay compensation for the dead after consulting with families.
Injured in the Monday stampede were 98 people waiting to enter a stadium for a holiday performance of old Korean pop songs, city officials said.
The dead were eight women aged from 54 to 76, along with three boys aged seven, 12 and 14, officials said.
Police questioned 22 people about the accident, including five city officials, said Kim Yong-tae, the officer heading the investigating team. He said it is unclear how many people could face punishment.
At the stadium on Tuesday morning, used bandages and bloodstained clothes littered the ground. The metal bars of one of the gates to the venue appeared to have been bent by the force of the pushing crowd.
One of the injured concertgoers said people had flocked to see the performance because such events were rare in the provincial city, located 270km south-east of Seoul.
”People kept pushing us from behind and I tried not to fall but couldn’t help it,” said Kwon Kang-sook (54), sitting late on Monday with an intravenous drip in her arm in the emergency room of Sangju Sungmo hospital. She suffered a stomach injury.
She said each gate at the stadium had two doors, but that only one had been opened at the gate where the stampede occurred.
”I wonder who prevented the door from opening,” Kwon said.
The funeral halls of the hospital, where five of the dead were taken, were filled early on Tuesday with wails of mourning relatives.
One woman said her dead mother-in-law, Kim In-shim (66), had arrived at the concert venue early in the afternoon to make sure she could get a front-row seat.
”When the door opened, she fell over and was trampled by other people,” said Huh Soon-ja, adding that her father-in-law had also broken a leg.
”I’m totally at a loss,” she said, sobbing in front of a funeral photo.
The concert staged by the MBC television network had been scheduled at the end of a three-day bicycle festival organised by the Sangju city government. MBC issued a statement expressing condolences to the victims and said it will investigate the accident along with city authorities.
The city of 120 000 people claims to have the highest per-capita bicycle ownership in South Korea and was promoting bicycle use to help the environment. — Sapa-AP