Itaewon Halloween Crowd Crush (Seoul, 2022)

The Itaewon crowd crush in 2022 killed 159 people, making it the deadliest South Korean disaster since the 2014 Sewol ferry sinking, when an estimated 100,000 revelers packed into a 45-meter-long alley during Halloween festivities. The narrow passage, just 3.2 meters wide, created a density of at least 8 people per square meter—30% higher than the lethal threshold. This tragedy exposed critical failures in crowd management that were less severe than the 2012 Love Parade disaster ranked #2, but still resulted in 196 total casualties including injuries.