BBC
The items are laid out neatly in the almost silent sports hall: designer handbags, well-worn trainers, headphones still nestled in their cases.
They are some of the possessions left behind as people desperately tried to escape the crush which took the lives of more than 150 Halloween revellers in a Seoul neighbourhood on Saturday.
The Wonhyoro sports centre – usually home to volleyball games and community events – has already played a part in this tragedy: it is here that rescuers brought the bodies in the immediate aftermath of the disaster.
But now – just days later – survivors and victims’ families have been invited into the hall, so they can pick out items that belonged to them or their loved ones.
On Tuesday, a couple came into the vast, echoey hall and picked up a black jacket. A group of girls walked in and took a pair of white heeled boots, covered in dirt.
The mood was calm and pensive as people surveyed the large rectangles of cloth and plastic picnic tables with their dirtied and crushed items – a grim reminder of the high number of tragic deaths and injured.
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