BBC News:
On a bright and cloudless October afternoon, Lee Insook marched into a grassy field in the middle of Seoul, sat down, and began to wail.
Clutching a handmade sign that said “I’m so sorry, guys”, she directed her piercing cries at a large stage covered in flowers – a public altar honouring the many young lives lost in Saturday night’s Itaewon crush.
She was one of thousands of Seoul residents who flocked to the altar at City Hall on Monday, as the capital struggled with grief and anger over the disaster – the worst the country has seen since 2014, when the Sewol ferry sank, killing more than 300 people.
Solemnly, they queued up – families with young children, office workers, housewives and retirees. Organisers handed out stalks of white chrysanthemums, a symbol of grief in South Korea, which the mourners laid at the altar with deep bows.
Some murmured prayers. Others cried.
A few kilometres away at the scene of the disaster in Itaewon, hundreds also gathered to lay bouquets of chrysanthemums. Among them were small bottles of soju, a popular alcoholic drink. It was an offering to the dead so that their spirits could enjoy one last drink.
Jung Chankyung, a housewife from Gimpo, a neighbourhood outside Seoul, travelled more than an hour to reach the heart of the capital to pay her respects.
Watching scenes of the tragedy on the news “just felt unreal, so heartbreaking and shocking”, she said, her eyes brimming with tears. “I called my children to make sure they were safe.”
Many of those who turned up at City Hall were young – in their 20s, like Kim Min-jeong.
“It’s quite surprising. I feel really sad because the victims are my age, so many are women too. I think a lack of control probably caused [this],” she said.
Of the 154 who died, 98 were women and 56 were men. There is speculation that women died in greater numbers because they are smaller and found it harder to muscle their way up to breathe or make their way out of the crowd.
For Koo Jaehoon, it was a close call. The 29-year-old Itaewon regular wanted to head down there to party on Saturday night, but decided against it at the last minute when he heard it was getting crowded.
