Seoul crowd crush: local police offices raided in investigation

Eleven emergency callers used Korean word for crushed to death' 13 times hours before incident

South Korea's National Police Agency on has raided local police departments in the capital, Seoul, and the city's Yongsan district office as it investigates whether official ineptitude contributed to a crowd surge that killed 156 people in the neighbourhood of Itaewon.

The raids came a day after the national agency acknowledged Seoul police failed to act for hours despite receiving at least 11 emergency calls from pedestrians warning about a swelling crowd of Halloween revellers getting out of control ahead of the crush on Saturday in a narrow alley near Hamilton Hotel.