My Korean friend who frequently visits that area in Itaewon stated that they should have closed smaller roads like where the stampede happened. Also there weren’t enough police presence to control the crowd, since they stopped 의경 program(mandatory military service that can be replaced as serving as police force) and just less police force in general. That area was also frequently patrolled by US military until the base moved to pyeong taek permanently away from Yongsan.

So overall crowd control wasn’t enough, plus covid restrictions lifted at Itaewon, plus Halloween plus small hilly road caused all this man made disaster.