[Itaewon Tragedy] Lee Jae-myung Visits Site: "No Separation of Road and Sidewalk, No One-Way Traffic Management... Was There Any Plan to Control?"

"Even if I just repeated what I did before... I don't understand"

[Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Oh Ju-yeon] Lee Jae-myung, leader of the Democratic Party of Korea, pointed out on the 31st that there were shortcomings in the pre-control plans related to the 'Itaewon crowd crush accident.'

After concluding the Supreme Council meeting that morning, Lee visited the joint memorial altar set up in front of Noksapyeong Station on the Seoul subway with the leadership to pay his respects. He then moved to Exit 1 of Itaewon Station, the site of the tragedy, observed the scene in front of the police line, and received explanations from fire department officials.

Lee asked Choi Seong-beom, chief of Yongsan Police Station, "No matter how many people there are, if the sidewalk and roadway are separated and controlled, wouldn't people avoid entering the roadway?" and inquired, "Was there any intention to control that?"

He criticized, "If manpower was insufficient, they would have supplemented it to block the area, but since there was no plan at all, vehicles and people were left mixed together. That is the first problem."

Lee added, "From my experience as a local head, there are regular events in the area. Large-scale events held annually have some kind of management plan and safety measures," and questioned, "In this event, the number of people was expected to increase over time, so why were the roadway and sidewalk not separated, and why was entry control not implemented? It seems such measures should have been included in the basic plan."

In response, Chief Choi said, "The fire safety measures focused on fire prevention. We organized work shifts of 12 people each, but when we arrived at 7:05 p.m., 12 people were nowhere near enough," to which Lee replied, "Firefighting is primarily aimed at accident response, so it was very helpful. Thank you for your hard work."

Nevertheless, Lee emphasized, "Such incidents must never happen again, so the causes must be accurately identified to establish effective countermeasures," and added, "What I really don't understand is that this is an annual event, and even if only previous measures had been repeated, this wouldn't have happened. I don't understand why this time there was no entry control, no separation of roadway and sidewalk, and no one-way traffic management."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.