The clock in Seoul's dim, drafty railroad station showed 10:55 p.m. last week as some 3,800 holiday travelers waited restlessly for the last train to Mokpo in southwest Korea. The train was already five minutes late because the railroad, under the press of crowds leaving Seoul for the Lunar New Year celebrations, had sold 2,300 more tickets than the 18-coach train could carry. At that moment on Track 3 underneath the waiting room, the engineer of the Mokpo train blew a long whistle blast to signal switch crews to add more coaches.
Impatient passengers upstairs mistook the whistle for the last call to board. There was a stampede to the steep, 14-ft.-wide stone stairway leading down to the platform, whose steps were covered with snow that had drifted in through the station's broken roof. Someone slipped, and in seconds the stair shaft was corked with screaming, struggling people. When the rush was over, 31 were dead, eleven of them children, in the worst railway disaster in Korean history.