The controlled site “Itaewon Halloween Disaster” and nearby roads have been closed since the 11th, and reporters and citizens are crossing the streets. Journalist Junheon Lee
Ahead of the 2020 Halloween festival, Seoul Transportation Corporation received an official letter from the Yongsan-gu office requesting a non-stop ride, but it was confirmed that it was rejected. The Special Investigation Headquarters of the National Police Agency, which is investigating the Halloween disaster in Itaewon, is investigating why the construction company did not stop and pass even though the passengers were crowded from the afternoon of the day of the disaster. Currently, the construction is determining if there are no stops without any manual, so it is emphasized that an improvement is needed.
On the 13th, an official document protected by the Kyunghyang Shinmun, requesting cooperation, such as passing through Itaewon without stopping on Halloween in 2020, said, “A large number of people are expected to visit Itaewon using Itaewon Station on Halloween. “There are concerns about the spread of group 19 infection.” In the official letter, Yongsan-gu’s office asked to stop at Itaewon Station at night when the crowd is concentrated, and to intensively quarantine and deploy security guards at subway stations.
The company refused the request to go through Itaewon Station without stopping. I heard that the number of passengers expected to get on and off is small, so if the bus doesn’t stop, the inconvenience for customers will become more serious. A construction official said: “At the time, passenger numbers were similar to normal” and “a disruption in passenger movement was anticipated, so we increased security personnel and added more.”
The special edition is investigating whether the subway’s failure to stop at Itaewon Station on the day of the disaster increased the scale of the disaster. Currently, the police and the corporation are resisting the call for non-stop service on the day of the disaster. Yongsan Police Station said in a special investigation, “The head of the 112 Situation Department requested that the construction pass through Itaewon Station without stopping around 21:38, about 37 minutes before the incident, but construction officials insisted on normal operation.” On the other hand, the company’s position is that “Yongsan Seo did not ask whether the subway stopped at Itaewon Station until about 11:11 pm, about an hour after the disaster”. The special edition is also investigating whether the Yongsan-gu office, which requested non-stop passage two years ago, did not request non-stop passage during this year’s Halloween festival, which was expected to attract more crazy.
Some point out that the problem is that there is no manual for non-stop cars. Article 62 of the company’s control company regulation only states that “the driver may pass through the station without stopping in consultation with the station manager if passenger safety is affected due to passenger congestion, disturbance or unusual situations “. In other words, there is no specific standard for “passenger congestion” and “unrest”.
Gong Ha-seong, a professor in the Department of Fire and Disaster Prevention at Woosuk University, said: “There should be a basic standard textbook, but it can be a problem to do it empirically.”
A construction official said, “It is ambiguous to set a quantitative standard (to pass without stopping)” and “the size of the station, whether or not there is a transfer, and the structure of the platform are all different for each station , so it is difficult to set it uniformly. When asked whether each station should have detailed regulations, he said: ‘As with a rally, it is difficult to set regulations because the number of people flocking to a station at different times can be flexible”. it.”
