At least 16 people watching and 700 people attending a pop concert.

Performance by a popular girl band 4Minute.

When on October 17th, 2014, the members of 4Minute started to perform at a small concert in Songban, they had no idea that the beautiful night would turn into the most tragic moment of their career. 16 people who came to cheer for the group fell into a shaft and none of them made it out alive.

This tragic incident marked the history of K-pop forever.

How it happened.

The tragedy took place in Songnam, a place south of Seoul, on October 17th, 2014.

The special small concert of 4Minute was held as a part of a festival at Panyo Techno Valley.

At the place of the concert, there was a ventilation shaft covered by a grate which became the main cause of this tragedy.

The concert had just started but the fans of 4Minute tried to see the girls perform from a better angle so they got up on the shaft which was a bit raised and it was just a few fans but then from 700 people, about 30 fans climbed up the shaft and eagerly watched 4Minute perform.

Unfortunately, as the dedicated fans danced along and jumped to the beat of the music, the grate covering the shaft let loose and these fans fell through.

Around 5pm, they fell down three floors and most of them took their last breath that very second.

One fan who witnessed the whole tragedy spoke to reporters and shared, There was a sudden loud screaming and when I turned, it looked as if people were being the accident, you can see that the grate covering the shaft was already getting loose and bending down as more people got on top of it.

Although many reports from the day of the incident claimed that there were from 20 to 30 people standing on it, The Fact, which is a Korean media outlet, reported that 25 people fell through the shaft.

What comes as an even greater surprise is that 4Minute and most of the fans present at the concert had no clue that the incident happened.

Cube Entertainment, which was a label of 4Minute, released an official statement regarding the The members and the staff did not know what had happened during their performance and only learned of the incident on their way back to Seoul.

We hope no more people get hurt because of this incident.

At the time of this statement, 16 people lost their lives due to them falling down the shaft and 10 people were seriously injured.

Out of those 16 lives, 12 of them were lost immediately after the fall, 2 while being transferred to hospital and 2 while receiving medical treatment in the hospital.

To say that this was devastating is an understatement because this accident occurred only 6 months after the Sewol ferry tragedy, which cost hundreds of lives of young people.

And you can only imagine how shocked the Korean nation was when another accident happened.

Who is to blame?

Immediately after the tragic incident occurred, everybody wanted to know who's to blame and why this happened in the first place.

Well, to understand the situation, we need to look at it from different angles.

First, the fans were not supposed to climb the shaft as it was naturally a health hazard.

But as we all know, the power of crowds is a real and when one fan does something, more are to follow.

That's how 26 people ended up standing on the shaft.

But this is exactly the reason why there are many members of security present at concerts because every performer and organizer knows that fans can do crazy things just to get closer to their favorite idols or see them better.

Well, as it turns out, in this case, the security was really lacking.

When the witnesses from the incident spoke to the media, they shared that there were no security guards present and that there was also no fencing or they cannot get up on the grate covering the vent.

An eyewitness who was near the shaft when it happened shared, Many people on the vent gratings were chanting and dancing to the music.

I was worried about their safety, but there were no security guards around.

However, there were some statements from the organizers who claimed that there were guards who warned people.

One netizen wrote, This is tragic, but I really feel sorry for the ushers slash staff that apparently tried to stop people from doing that.

But this is contradictory to the statement of the eyewitnesses.

Yonhap News investigated the incident a bit more and when it happened, they shared, If it turns out that safety regulations were ignored, we would bring criminal charges against them.

Apparently, the reason why the fans of 4Minute ended up going up the vent wasn't only because they wanted a better view.

The thing is, is that the organizers of the concert provided fans with only 400 places to sit on and the rest 300 people had to either squeeze together or somehow find a place to stand at.

And so they found the grate covering the ventilation shaft, which in fact led to an underground garage.

After the tragic incident, the organizers of the concert were obviously questioned not only by the media reporters, but also by the police.

The whole country tried to find out what truly happened that day at 5PM while 4Minute were performing.

But as the safety regulations were broken and people suffered to the point of losing their lives, the organizers didn't know how to react.

The government official who was in charge of the safety regulations of the event ended up jumping from a 10-story building, which obviously resulted in him passing away.

He left a goodbye note to his family and to the public in which he wrote, I am sorry for the victims.

Please take good care of my children.

This tragic incident once again underlined and highlighted South Korea's bad safety regulations and it put pressure on the government to finally treat people's lives with respect and pay more attention to safety.

Not only that, but many people found the situation hauntingly similar to the Sewol ferry tragedy.

In fact, the chairman of the company that owned the ferry and was unconscious at his home after the tragedy happened, so the situation was almost parallel to the 4Minute concert accident.

The response from the public was truly heavy.

The Aftermath We've talked about the number of casualties and what happened to the organizer, but what about 4Minute?

Obviously, the members of the group felt extremely guilty for what happened and especially for the fact that they were unaware that this tragic accident took place while they were performing.

Since they wanted to show their condolences and respect for the they had planned.

For example, Gahyun and Hyuna were invited to various fashion events and fashion shows as a part of Seoul Fashion Week, but they both decided not to attend and think about what happened.

A culture critic Baek Gook-nam spoke on this incident and said, 4Minute members are also partly victims of this tragedy.

Who would have known that they would suffer such an extreme level of trauma?

All we, fans and media, need to do is pay more attention to them and give them a warm hand.

Fans of the group showed their support for the members by writing comments and leaving them positive messages on their social media accounts.

One netizen wrote, Sewol disaster happened because people listened.

Pangyo happened because people didn't listen.

And another one shared, 4Minute must be feeling guilty for no reason.

Of course, this accident opened a heated debate among K-pop fans all over the world, not only in South Korea.

Many blame the fans of 4Minute for making the unreasonable decision of standing on the grate, but as I mentioned earlier in the video, that's why there's always security at concerts so they can warn fans from doing something that could result in serious injuries or other problems.

One user on Reddit sympathized with the victims and wrote, I can't even begin to imagine their last moments.

No one deserves to go like this, let alone 16 people.

Rest in peace.

The incident actually opened a long-needed conversation about safety regulations at concerts in South Korea.

The Korea Times published an article regarding the situation, and the author mentions two other cases when South Korea witnessed incidents like this at the 1992 accident when a teenager was crushed by 60 people at the performance of New Kids on the Block.

Another case they mentioned is a 1996 passing of a person who was also crushed by a crowd of 5,000 people who wanted to get front seats at an FM radio show in Daegu.

But the discussion regarding the hazards continued among fans as there were people who claimed that the government isn't solely to blame for this.

One user wrote, I don't think it's entirely private business and the government's fault.

People in Korea also don't seem to care much about their own safety.

Smoking is still ridiculously popular, people don't wear seatbelts, they leave no space in crowds, leaving a huge potential for someone to get crushed.

It's hard to judge the people who suffered from this accident, but it's important to say that the South Korean government has since tried to enforce stronger safety regulations.

When the incident happened, many K-pop fans pointed out that 2014 was truly a horrible year for K-pop, but not only that, it was also a tragic year for Korea in general as many devastating events happened that changed the country's What do you think about the incident?

Have you heard about it before?

And do you think there's someone to blame for this, or is it just a bad accident?

Share your thoughts in the comments.

Bye guys!