At least 149 people were killed and another 150 injured after they were crushed in a large Halloween crowd in Seoul on Saturday night, the city’s fire department said, in one of the deadliest peacetime accidents in South Korea’s recent history, nytimes.com.The crowd surge happened during one of the most raucous celebrations of the year in the nation’s capital, where as many as 100,000 people, local news media said, had clogged the narrow streets of the Itaewon nightlife district Saturday evening for Halloween festivities.

Kim Geun-jin, a division commander for the Seoul police, said that little could be reported about the cause of the incident as of 4 a.m. on Sunday because “identifying the victims is our top priority.” He added: “Our forensic teams are focused on identifying victims and collecting evidence from the site.”