Kim Byeongnae, Mayor of Gwangju Nam-gu, Orders Festival All-Stop to Mourn Itaewon Tragedy

[Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Park Jin-hyung] On the 30th, Kim Byeong-nae, Mayor of Nam-gu, Gwangju Metropolitan City, canceled all local festivals and urgently ordered safety inspections to join the mourning atmosphere for the Itaewon disaster.

At 11 a.m. that day, Mayor Kim urgently convened a field meeting with senior officials including Vice Mayor Lee Jeong-sik and heads of departments at Mulbit Neighborhood Park, the site of the Hyodeok-dong Residents' Unity Festival.

At this meeting, Mayor Kim expressed condolences for the casualties at the Itaewon Halloween Festival and ordered the cancellation of all events during the mourning period.

He also instructed special inspections of various upcoming festivals and event venues.

Accordingly, the Hyodeok-dong Residents' Unity Festival, scheduled to be held from 2 p.m. that day, was abruptly canceled.

Mayor Kim explained the background of the festival cancellation to residents who had come to the festival site without knowing the cancellation news, and the residents expressed their sorrow over the unexpected accident causing many casualties and joined the mourning procession.

Nam-gu also decided not to hold the Halloween Day social enterprise event at the Street Food Zone from 4 p.m. that day and the Wolsan 4-dong Residents' Unity Festival scheduled to be held from the morning of the 31st.

Along with this, the groundbreaking ceremony for the Bongseon Market parking tower construction scheduled for the 31st was canceled, and the employee workshops planned for the same day and the 3rd of next month were also canceled.

In addition, all 17 administrative welfare centers in the district raised flags at half-mast early and all employees wore mourning ribbons to share the national grief.

Mayor Kim said, “The Republic of Korea has once again fallen into great sorrow,” and “Together with the 220,000 residents of Nam-gu, we console the souls of the victims and hope that such a tragic disaster will never happen again in our society.”