Family members of the victims attend a memorial ceremony marking the third anniversary of the Oct. 29 Itaewon disaster at Gwanghwamun Square in Seoul on October 29. (Yonhap)
SEOUL, Oct. 29 (Korea Bizwire) – Three years after a deadly crowd crush turned a festive Halloween night into one of South Korea’s darkest moments, visitors returned Wednesday to a narrow alley in Seoul’s Itaewon district. They came quietly, many before dawn, carrying white chrysanthemums and handwritten notes that filled the street once choked with panic and bodies.
Along the alley walls, small memorial tablets, incense burners, and paper messages created an improvised shrine. The setting was familiar to anyone who remembers the tragedy: the same cramped passageway, the same steep grade, but now marked by grief that has settled into something slow and lasting.
Choi Hun-nyeong, 26, arrived with friends at sunrise. He bowed his head over incense, unsure how to fully process what happened here.
“I still can’t believe such a thing happened in this place,” he said. “I came because I didn’t want people to forget. This should never happen again.”
A Buddhist monk, visiting from Buyeo in South Chungcheong Province, swept litter from the paving stones in silence before pausing to speak.
“I came to honor the souls who perished,” he said. “It is heartbreaking that Halloween festivities return while the families’ pain remains so raw.”
Just steps away, storefronts have begun to revive the holiday mood, layering pumpkins and cartoon ghosts over a site that remains deeply unsettled. Barricades and crowd-control fencing line the alleys—an acknowledgment that memories alone cannot ensure safety.
Later that morning, families of victims gathered with government officials at Gwanghwamun Square for a joint memorial. A siren sounded across the capital, calling the city to a moment of silence for the 159 lives lost on October 29, 2022.
Itaewon has struggled to balance normalcy with remembrance. For those who visited on Wednesday, the act of coming back was itself a statement: the night’s trauma is not a story closed, and grief still asks to be witnessed.
Lina Jang (linajang@koreabizwire.com)
