Korean Job Discussion Forums

[wylies99]

http://joongangdaily.joins.com/article/view.asp?aid=2900833

Festival stampede kills 4

February 10, 2009
Four tourists fell to their deaths from a cliff as a crowd of thousands stampeded to escape a fire during a festival at Mount Hwawang in South Gyeongsang yesterday evening.

Pampas grass fields were set ablaze as part of an event held to mark the first full moon of the lunar new year.

At around 6:20 p.m., strong winds caused the fire to spread suddenly. As thousands bolted, four fell off the cliff and died and 10 others were injured, local police said.

The injured tourists were rushed to hospitals in Changwon and Masan. Police said the patients were severely burned, and one of them is in critical condition.

The number of injured will likely grow, police said. An investigation to identify the victims has begun.

The festival, based on folk mythology that setting the fire will awaken the mountain�s fire spirit and bring about a bumper crop, has been organized by the Changnyeong-gun government every three years since 1995.

According to police, 20,000 tourists gathered on the mountain yesterday to watch the event.

The festival organizer had built a 50-meter-long fire-proof fence, but the structure was unable to stop the blaze, police said. It normally takes about 20 minutes for the pampas grass fields to burn completely.


By Ser Myo-ja Staff Reporter [[email protected]]

[cruisemonkey]

Wow... I was at that festival a couple of years ago!

[BS.Dos.]

I spoke to another FT on my way home from school last night who was on his way up there to take pictures. Hope he got back okay.

[BS.Dos.]

Mountain, fire, changeable winds, large crowds. All the ingredients for a potential catastrophe.

[blurgalurgalurga]

Man, that sucks...there's something especially sad about people dying while trying to have fun and do something cool with the family, like watching the full moon.
It was a really beautiful moon last night, too. A penumbral eclipse, even.

[wylies99]

If you've ever been in large crowds for concerts or games, you've probably seen that "stampede mentality" take over a crowd. It's frightening, and some people tend to lose themselves in the fear and chaos. It's like you can't even talk any sense into them.

[BS.Dos.]

Footage. Not very pleasant.

[BS.Dos.]

13 still missing.

[GEOM]

[aquaponics08]

Sad. Happens everywhere, tho.

[Yu_Bum_suk]

This one hit rather close to home. Thankfully none of our students were amongst the casualties but two of my students' aunt was one of the fatalities.

It took fire-fighting helicopters until yesterday afternoon to extinquish the last of the blazes. I'm pretty sure that if there were any more bodies up there they would have been noticed, and those 13 not accounted for were people who who went and hadn't yet made contact with friends and relatives who were trying to find where they were.

[wylies99]

[BS.Dos.]

I just ran an impromptu lesson on it. Printed and pre-taught some basic first-aid/emergency services, injuries, weather and natural disaster vocab, then got the students to explain about the festival (what, where, why, when, who etc) and then finished off with a discussion on how it could have been prevented and listed all the measures that should/could have been taken (standby emergency services, better crowd control/barriers etc, keeping a close eye on weather reports etc)

[BS.Dos.]

[crosbystillsstash]

Did they actually create a wildfire as a tourist interaction? With Korean's renowned lack of planning that's asking for trouble unfortunately.