Society News

Korea sends 7,800 police for Halloween crowds; Hong Kong and Japan set their own rules

South Korea's National Police Agency will deploy around 7,800 personnel nationwide to manage Halloween crowds from Friday to Sunday, Yonhap and The Korea Herald reported on October 30. It is the country's fourth Halloween since the 2022 Itaewon crowd crush.

The Korea Herald said a special safety management period will run across the weekend, with riot police, regional patrol teams and detectives sent mainly to 28 key areas, including 14 locations in Seoul.

Elsewhere in Asia the concerns are different. In Hong Kong, South China Morning Post reported that authorities will give public transport priority at the Huanggang border crossing over the weekend. Chief Secretary Eric Chan said the outbound peak would run from 11pm to 2am on Friday to Sunday nights, warned that private cars could wait more than an hour, and urged people to avoid peak times. In Japan, The Japan Times reminded party-goers that putting a red cross on a nurse costume breaks the law, because the symbol is protected and reserved for humanitarian purposes.

How each outlet framed it

• Yonhap — the national police plan.
• The Korea Herald — the details of the deployment, set against the memory of Itaewon.
• South China Morning Post — cross-border traffic over the holiday weekend.
• The Japan Times — a costume rule most people don't know about.

What we don't know yet: how big the crowds will be; police in all three places were planning for weekend peaks.