Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier has expressed to the Korean people Germany’s “heartfelt sympathy” for the Halloween disaster that left more than 150 dead.
During their visit to South Korea, he and his wife Elke Büdenbender laid white chrysanthemums at the official memorial in Seoul on Friday. The two paused for a minute’s silence and signed the book of condolences.
“We mourn with the Korean people. Our thoughts are with them,” Steinmeier said afterwards. “Friendship shows itself not only in good times, but also in sad times. And that applies to the friendship between Germany and Korea. We are with Korea in this sad hour.”
The accident happened last weekend at unorganized Halloween celebrations in a popular entertainment district in Seoul. In a mass panic, numerous people were trapped in the extreme crowds in a narrow and sloping side street. Many fell to the ground, suffocated, were crushed or kicked to death.
“A festival that the people here looked forward to with great joy and happiness ended in a deadly catastrophe,” said Steinmeier in Seoul, where the flags hung at half-mast on Friday. “It is a personal concern of my wife and I to commemorate the victims here on site. Our sympathy goes to the relatives and friends of the victims who have lost loved ones.”
