SOUTH KOREA: Children’s Show

Every now and then a strong gust of wind whipped through the big stadium at Pusan, but at first the 70,000 children and parents in the audience paid no attention. Onstage, as the restless bunting snapped and waved, a troop of comedians and singers was putting on a special children’s show, and the audience giggled and roared. But some among the parents began to notice black clouds massing in the sky, and remembered that a typhoon had been reported offshore that very morning. The performers sensed the danger, too, for they began to race through their acts. Seconds later, the heavens opened.

As the torrents fell, the 70,000 scrambled into the aisles, headed for the stadium’s three main exits. Stadium guards were swept aside, exits jammed with screaming children and adults; writhing bodies fell underfoot. Police reinforcements tried hauling to safety those trapped in the doorways. But as the crowds inside the stadium kept pushing, the police began beating them back with clubs. Finally, the panic passed like the storm that started it and then faded away. In ugly heaps near each doorway lay scores of injured and the 62 dead, 52 of whom were children under ten.