Two American students are identified among the 154 people killed in a stampede during Halloween festivities in Seoul, South Korea, on Saturday night. Anne Gieske and Steven Blesi, both 20, were studying abroad and had gone to attend the Halloween celebrations when they were killed in the horrific stampede.
The tragedy took place as the audience at the Halloween celebration surged and turned disorderly, which led to a fatal stampede. An estimated 100,000 people attended the event in South Korea. According to some reports, the majority of the victims of the incident were teenagers and people in their twenties.
At least 154 people were killed and about 82 were injured in a crowd crush during Halloween celebrations in the narrow streets and alleys of the Itaewon area of Seoul on Saturday night. The tragedy has prompted debate over the role of national and local agencies and who should be accountable. President Yoon Suk-yeol has declared a weeklong national mourning period.
A crowd crush or surge happens when people are packed together in a confined space and there’s movement such as pushing that causes the crowd to fall over.
Officials said they have identified nearly all of the victims and on Sunday mourners began leaving white flowers and handwritten notes. The victims include 56 men and 97 women, and most were in their 20s and 30s. At least 19 foreign nationals were among the dead.
At least two Americans died in Saturday’s catastrophic crowd surge, according to the U.S. Embassy in Seoul. The State Department declined to name the two, but Steven Blesi was the first to be publicly identified when his family shared information about his death on social media and with news outlets. Later Sunday, the University of Kentucky announced that Anne Gieske, a junior nursing student who was studying abroad, had died.
Steven Blesi had dreamed of spending a semester abroad, since his freshman year of college. The coronavirus pandemic delayed it for two years. But this fall he finally got his chance. Unfortunately, this was meant to be his first and last adventure.
His parents took him to the Atlanta airport in August for his trip to South Korea, the two of them teary-eyed and Blesi stoked to be on his way. They snapped photographs together and got one of him headed up the escalator, looking back with a smile.
Blesi was only partway through the semester when, his family said, he became one of more than 150 people killed as a Halloween celebration in Seoul became so tightly packed that many could not breathe. He was 20 years old.
“He was an extrovert, he was full of adventure,” his father, Steve Blesi, said in an interview with The Washington Post. “And this was his first big adventure.”
The younger of two brothers who were also best friends, Blesi was being remembered as bighearted, happy-go-lucky, quick to stick up for others. "His adventurous spirit was apparent even in childhood", his dad said
Officials verified that Anne Gieske, a junior in the University of Kentucky's nursing program who had just celebrated her 20th birthday on Friday, was also killed in the stampede. Hours after Gieske's terrible death was announced, the family of Blesi, also 20, said that they had been informed that he was also among the 156 who perished.
