By Choe Sang-Hun, John Yoon, Paul Mozur, Victoria Kim, Lee Su-Hyun and Jin Yu Young

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There were few police officers around as a mass of revelers swelled. From within the crowd came calls to “push, push” and a big shove, according to witnesses. Then, they began to fall

It was supposed to be a festive evening, throngs of raucous youngsters dressed as zombies, princesses and super heroes converging on one of Seoul’s most popular nightlife districts for their first restriction-free Halloween celebration since the pandemic began.

Late Saturday evening, they crowded into bars and nightclubs pumping out the latest K-pop hits and spilled out into the tight alleys that wind through the city’s Itaewon neighborhood. They snacked on the Greek, Turkish, Italian and other international foods for which the diverse district is known.

As the night grew more frenetic and the mass of revelers swelled, many of them crammed into an alleyway barely 11 feet wide, in a bottleneck of human traffic that made it difficult to breathe and move. There were few police officers around, and from within the crowd came calls to “push, push” and a big shove, according to witnesses. Then, they began to fall, a tangle of too many bodies, compressed into too small of a space.

Zen Ogren, 32, found herself stuck in a packed and sweltering club alongside the narrow alleyway, a thoroughfare connecting a strip of bars to a busy subway station and a popular spot for taking photographs. Outside the club’s door, people were yelling, “Please don’t come out, people are dying,” she said. Security guards urged the crowds to not jostle, but many pushed forward, stepping on top of those who had fallen.

“They just wanted to go out,” Ms. Ogren said.