Park Ga-young was a small-town woman going to highschool in a giant metropolis, with goals of continuous her research overseas.
Initially from the agricultural city of Hongseong, in western South Korea, she was a scholar at Mokwon College in Daejeon, a metropolis to not removed from her residence. She had additionally been working part-time to save cash in order that she might afford to make her dream of continuous to review style design in Canada come true.
On Saturday, Ms. Park, 19, was taking a getaway in Seoul, when she discovered herself swept up in a crowd surge within the Itaewon neighborhood throughout Halloween festivities. She was certainly one of 150 individuals who died.
She was supposed to show 20 on Tuesday.
“What to do about my youngster? What to do about my youngster?” Ms. Park’s mom, Choi Seon-mi, mentioned as she cried, her head and arms towards a wall on the at Hannam Neighborhood Heart, the place households have been ready on Sunday to search out out about their family members.
Ms. Choi, 49, fell off her chair when her daughter’s the loss of life was confirmed. She continued to cry as she emerged into the ready room the place she instructed members of her prolonged household the information.
Ms. Choi mentioned she had recognized that her daughter had deliberate to be in Itaewon, and when she first heard that folks had died there on Saturday night time, she mentioned, “It felt just like the sky was falling.” Her final dialog together with her daughter, she mentioned, was about Ms. Park’s preparations to review overseas.
Ms. Choi and her husband, Park Gye-soon, 50, have been among the many mother and father who spent their Sunday enduring a painful wait to see if their family members have been among the many deceased.
Mr. Park and Ms. Choi made their method to the funeral residence of Kangdong Sacred Coronary heart Hospital in Seoul later Sunday afternoon, the place the authorities instructed them their daughter’s physique was. On the funeral residence, tears remained on Ms. Choi’s face.
Ms. Choi appeared to wrestle to explain how she felt, overcome by grief. “How can I clarify it in phrases?” she mentioned.
“She was a good looking youngster,” she mentioned, displaying a photograph of her daughter. “She was so very fairly,” she added, earlier than she broke down in tears. Many of the useless, officers mentioned, have been girls and younger adults of their teenagers and 20s, like Ms. Park.
At some moments all through Sunday, Ms. Choi appeared numb. At different occasions she expressed guilt. “Guess I’m a sinner. It’s all my fault,” she mentioned.
And at nonetheless different occasions, she was indignant. How was it potential, she puzzled, that there could possibly be tens of 1000’s of individuals in Itaewon and so few cops? “How does that make sense?” she mentioned. “They are saying that huge crowds collect there yearly, however the police have improved nothing.”
After a second of silence, Mr. Park and Ms. Choi stood up with a sigh and made their manner out of the funeral residence, expressionless.
Su-Hyun Lee contributed reporting.
