“There were rows and rows of people with tarps covering them in the street,” Emily Farmer, a 27-year-old English teacher in Seoul who was passing through Itaewon, told CNN.

Farmer and her friends were “overwhelmed” by the crowds on the street and decided to enter a bar. Shortly after, rumors started spreading that somebody had died and patrons were not allowed to leave. Farmer said she received an emergency message from the government alerting them to “a dangerous situation in the area,” and later was allowed to leave the bar, when she discovered the scale of the tragedy.

“It was horrible,” she said. “Not everyone died instantly.” Groups of people were crying, she added. Many victims were receiving CPR and had their costumes taken off to allow medics at the scene to resuscitate them. “They were still pulling people (out) because it was so crowded,” she added.

Another eyewitness, Sung Sehyun, told CNN that the street space was like a “jammed subway” on Saturday evening, with Halloween partygoers packed so tightly that it was difficult to move around.

Suah Cho added that people had started to push and shove, and there was a lot of screaming. She eventually managed to take a detour and fled to safety but had seen people climbing buildings to survive. She added that the costumes people were wearing added to the confusion; “there was also a police officer screaming but we couldn’t really tell (if it) was a real police officer because so many people were wearing costumes.”

Witnesses told CNN there was very little – if any – crowd control before the mass of people turned deadly.

Videos and photos posted to social media show people crammed together, standing shoulder to shoulder in the narrow street.