BUSAN — Busan is stepping up crowd control for the Chuseok holiday after about 20,000 people a day began flocking to a scenic waterway at North Port Waterfront Park to see a shark that appeared there. Because visitors are gathering on their own without any organizer or scheduled event, the city plans phased controls centered on the bridges and the waterfront, while allowing the shark to make its way back out to sea on its own by the end of the holiday.
The city said on the 23rd that it is carrying out the Chuseok holiday safety management plan together with nine organizations, including the Dong-gu District Office, police, fire authorities, the coast guard, the National Institute of Fisheries Science, the Busan Port Authority and the Busan Infrastructure Corporation.
The city will run an integrated situation room during the holiday, headed by the director-general of its green city bureau, and deploy about 50 emergency duty staff to the site each day. Personnel from the city, the Busan Infrastructure Corporation, the Dong-gu District Office and the police will manage Footbridges 4 and 5 and the waterfront, where visitors concentrate, and the coast guard and fire authorities will patrol the area twice a day.
If crowds grow, officials will steer visitors to disperse and restrict entry to congested stretches. If necessary, they will close off sections or direct people to leave. At night, the existing restriction on access to the waterway will remain in place from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. the following day. Once the 464 parking spaces fill up, the city plans to direct drivers to about 1,500 spaces at the Busan Port International Passenger Terminal to ease traffic congestion.
For now, the city and the related agencies will wait for the shark to move out naturally. If it is still in the scenic waterway by the end of the Chuseok holiday, they will consider a rescue plan.
The shark was first spotted in the scenic waterway on the 18th of this month. Word of the sighting spread through social media, and the number of visitors surged, with about 2,000 people gathering at one point on the 19th. The city has classified the situation as an "unpredictable crowd concentration," in which an unspecified number of people gather voluntarily without an organizer or advance notice, and is tightening safety management accordingly.
