Dozens of people have reportedly died after a huge crush in the South Korean capital Seoul
An official from the National Fire Agency initially said around 100 people were injured during the deadly crowd surge on Saturday night in the Itaewon leisure district of Seoul.
It is believed that hundreds of thousands had gathered in Itaewon, Seoul to attend the city's 2022 Halloween Festival, but a crush occurred shortly after 10pm local time.
Emergency workers remove a body from the streets of Seoul after a deadly crush is confirmed to have killed at least 146 people
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Officials have now confirmed that dozens of people went into cardiac arrest and 120 have so far been confirmed to have died - although that number is expected to rise. Hundreds more were injured.
'As of 02:30 am, 120 have been killed and 100 have been injured,' fire official Choi Seong-beom told reporters at the scene.
Photos from the scene appear to show at least 25 bodies on the ground, concealed by yellow blankets. A separate line of bodies covered in blue blankets has also been photographed.
Officials added it was believed that people were crushed to death after a large crowd began pushing forward in a narrow alley near Hamilton Hotel, a major party spot in Seoul.
Police said dozens of people are being given CPR on Itaewon streets while many others have been taken to nearby hospitals.
Photographs and videos on social media show horrific scenes in the aftermath of the crush, and people's desperate efforts to evade the tragedy.
One man was pictured climbing an almost flat wall high above the crowd to escape the panic beneath him.
Video on social media showed dozens of motionless figures lying on the ground in the aftermath of the incident while dozens more emergency workers and members of the public worked intensely around them.
Most of the figures were being given CPR and are thought to have had cardiac arrests.
Emergency workers urgently try to extricate those most in need of medical assistance from the crowd
Choi Seong-beom, chief of Seoul's Yongsan fire department, said the death toll could rise as emergency workers were continuing to transport the injured to hospitals across Seoul following the stampede in the leisure district of Itaewon on Saturday night.
He added an unspecified number among the injured were in critical conditions following the stampede in the leisure district of Itaewon Saturday night.
The stampede took place around 10.20pm (1300 GMT) and according to Choi many of the victims were trampled to death.
'The high number of casualties was the result of many being trampled during the Halloween event,' Choi said, adding that the death toll could climb.
The Yonhap news agency in South Korea quoted an unidentified witness as saying he saw victims crushed to death.
'People were layered on top of others like a tomb. Some were gradually losing their consciousness while some looked dead by that point,' the witness said, according to Yonhap.
He said 74 of the dead have been sent to hospitals while the bodies of the remaining 46 who had been kept on the streets were being transported to a nearby gym so that workers could identify them.
More than 800 emergency workers from around South Korea have been deployed to the area, including every available worker in the capital itself.
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This includes 140 ambulances who have rushed to treat people at the scene after thousands headed into a narrow street in the capital's party district.
The officer requested anonymity, saying the details of the incident were still under investigation.
Police officers have been pictured beginning their investigations into the incident, including gathering items of interest from the ground.
Some local media reports earlier said the crush happened after a large number of people rushed to an Itaewon bar after hearing an unidentified celebrity visited there.
Among those being treated by emergency workers appeared to be some children.
South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol issued a statement calling for officials to ensure swift treatment for those injured and review the safety of the festivity sites.
Seoul's mayor Oh Se-hoon is currently out of the country on a visit to Europe but has decided to return home following the news.
He is reportedly already on his way back to South Korea.
Local media are reporting that President Yeol is chairing an emergency meeting and has ordered that treating and evacuating people from the area should be the top priorities.
They added that around 100,000 people flocked to Itaewon streets for the Halloween festivities, which were the biggest in years following the easing of Covid-19 restrictions in recent months.
The most deadly crowd stampedes in the last 30 years
April 1989: Ninety-six people are killed and at least 200 injured in Britain's worst sports disaster after a crowd surge crushed fans against barriers at the English F.A. Cup semi-final match Hillsborough stadium in Sheffield.
July 1990: Inside Saudi Arabia's al-Muaissem tunnel near the Muslim holy city of Mecca, 1,426 pilgrims are crushed to death during Eid al-Adha, Islam's most important feast, at the end of the annual haj pilgrimage.
May 1994: A stampede near Jamarat Bridge in Saudi Arabia during the haj kills 270 in the area where pilgrims hurl stones at piles of rocks symbolising the devil.
April 1998: One hundred and nineteen Muslim pilgrims are crushed to death during the haj in Saudi Arabia.
May 2001: In Ghana, at least 126 people are killed in a stampede at Accra's main soccer stadium when police fire tear gas at rioting fans in one of Africa's worst soccer disasters.
Feb 2004: A stampede kills 251 Muslim pilgrims in Saudi Arabia near Jamarat Bridge during the haj ritual stoning of the devil.
Jan 2005: At least 265 Hindu pilgrims are killed in a crush near a remote temple in India's Maharashtra state.
Aug 2005: At least 1,005 people die in Iraq when Shi'ites stampede off a bridge over the Tigris river in Baghdad, panicked by rumours of a suicide bomber in the crowd.
Jan 2006: Three hundred and sixty-two Muslim pilgrims are crushed to death at the eastern entrance of the Jamarat Bridge when pilgrims jostle to perform the haj stoning ritual.
Aug 2008: Rumours of a landslide trigger a stampede by pilgrims in India at the Naina Devi temple in Himachal Pradesh state. At least 145 people die and more than 100 are injured.
Sept 2008: In India, 147 people are killed in a stampede at the Chamunda temple, near the historic western town of Jodhpur.
July 2010: A stampede kills 19 people and injures 342 when people push through a tunnel at the Love Parade techno music festival in Duisburg, Germany.
Nov 2010: A stampede on a bridge in Cambodia's capital, Phnom Penh, kills at least 350 people after thousands panic on the last day of a water festival.
Jan 2013: More than 230 people die after a fire breaks out at a nightclub in the southern Brazilian college town of Santa Maria, and a stampede crushes some of the victims and keeps others from fleeing the fumes and flames.
Oct 2013: Devotees crossing a long, concrete bridge towards a temple in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh panic when some railings break, triggering a stampede that kills 115.
Sept 2015: At least 717 Muslim pilgrims are killed and 863 injured in a crush at the haj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia.
April 2021: At least 44 people are crushed to death at an overcrowded religious bonfire festival in Israel in what medics said was a stampede.
Nov 2021: At least nine people are killed and scores injured in a crush at the opening night of rapper Travis Scott's Astroworld music festival in Houston, Texas, triggered by a surge of fans pushing toward the stage.
Jan 2022: At least 12 Hindu pilgrims died and more than a dozen are injured in a stampede at the Mata Vaishno Devi shrine in Kashmir during events to mark the New Year.
Jan 2022: A stampede at a church on the outskirts of Liberia's capital Monrovia killed 29 people during an all-night Christian worship event.
May 2022: At least 31 people die during a stampede at a church in Nigeria's southern Rivers state, after people who turned up to receive food at the church broke through a gate.
Oct 2022: A stampede at a soccer stadium in Indonesia kills at least 125 people and injures more than 320 after police sought to quell violence on the pitch, authorities said.
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