Proper crowd and traffic control by South Korean authorities could have prevented or at least reduced the surge of Halloween party-goers in alleys that led to a crush and the deaths of 154 people, safety experts said on Monday.

The annual festivities in the popular nightlife area of Itaewon in Seoul also did not have a central organising entity, which meant government authorities were not required to establish or enforce safety protocols.

In contrast, at rallies by labour unions and by supporters of President Yoon Suk-yeol that drew tens of thousands in Gwanghwamun, central Seoul, on the same Saturday, up to 4,000 police were deployed, a police official said.

"Police are now working on a thorough analysis of the incident's cause," Minister of the Interior and Safety Lee Sang-min said on Monday.

"It's not appropriate to make hasty conclusions before the exact cause is determined - whether it was caused by a lack of police or whether there is something that we should fundamentally change for rallies and gatherings."

President Yoon has called for a thorough investigation into the cause of the crush as well as improvements in safety measures that can be used for large gatherings where there is no set organiser.

While South Korea has a safety manual for festivals expected to attract more than 1,000 people, the manual presupposes an organising body in charge of safety planning and requesting government resources.

Just two weeks earlier, the Itaewon Global Village Festival organised by a tourism association and sponsored by the city of Seoul and Yongsan district, had people wearing yellow vests directing the flow of movement and the main road was closed to car traffic.

But on Saturday, there were just thousands of shops open for business, normal car traffic rules and tens of thousands of young people eager to celebrate Halloween without major COVID restrictions for the first time since the pandemic.

"Just because it's not named a 'festival' doesn't mean there should be any difference in terms of disaster management," said Paek Seung-joo, a professor of fire & disaster protection at Open Cyber University of Korea.

"As there was no central authority, each government arm just did what they usually do - the fire department prepared for fires and the police prepared for crime. There needs to be a system where a local government takes the reins and cooperates with other authorities to prepare for the worst," he said.

Moon Hyeon-cheol, a professor at the Graduate School of Disaster Safety Management at Soongsil University, said this type of crush had the potential to happen in any populous city.

"We need to take this tragedy and learn to prepare for the risk of disaster," he said.(Reuters)

Norway will put its military on a raised level of alert from Tuesday as it sharpens security in response to the war in Ukraine, the Nordic country's prime minister said on Monday.

Norway is now the biggest exporter of natural gas to the European Union, accounting for around a quarter of all EU imports after a drop in Russian flows.

"This is the most severe security situation in several decades," Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere told a news conference.

"There are no indications that Russia is expanding its warfare to other countries, but the increased tensions make us more exposed to threats, intelligence operations and influence campaigns."

The armed forces will spend less time training and more time on operational duties, and the Home Guard, a rapid mobilisation force, will play a more active role, Defence Minister Bjoern Arild Gram said.

The air force had called off training in the United States with its F35 fighter jets, preferring to keep them in Norway, said the head of the armed forces, General Eirik Kristoffersen.

"We expect this situation to last for at least one year," Kristoffersen said.

Norway first deployed its military to guard offshore platforms and onshore facilities after leaks on the Nord Stream pipeline on Sept. 26 and has received support from the British, French and German navies.(Reuters)

Norway will put its military on a raised level of alert from Tuesday as it sharpens security in response to the war in Ukraine, the Nordic country's prime minister said on Monday.

Norway is now the biggest exporter of natural gas to the European Union, accounting for around a quarter of all EU imports after a drop in Russian flows.

"This is the most severe security situation in several decades," Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere told a news conference.

"There are no indications that Russia is expanding its warfare to other countries, but the increased tensions make us more exposed to threats, intelligence operations and influence campaigns."

The armed forces will spend less time training and more time on operational duties, and the Home Guard, a rapid mobilisation force, will play a more active role, Defence Minister Bjoern Arild Gram said.

The air force had called off training in the United States with its F35 fighter jets, preferring to keep them in Norway, said the head of the armed forces, General Eirik Kristoffersen.

"We expect this situation to last for at least one year," Kristoffersen said.

Norway first deployed its military to guard offshore platforms and onshore facilities after leaks on the Nord Stream pipeline on Sept. 26 and has received support from the British, French and German navies.(Reuters)

Lebanon took delivery on Monday of its first vaccines to combat a worsening cholera outbreak - together with sharply worded criticism of the crisis-hit country's crumbling public health infrastructure from donor nation France.

By Sunday, cases of cholera - a disease typically spread through contaminated water, food or sewage - stood at 1,447, with 17 deaths, since the first were recorded in the country a month ago, the health ministry said.

Lebanon had been cholera-free since 1993, but its public services are suffering under a brutal economic crisis now in its fourth year, while infighting among the country's faction-riven elite has paralysed its political institutions.

The outbreak has reached Beirut, but authorities say most cases remain concentrated where it started in the northern town of Bebnine, where health authorities have set up an emergency field hospital.

The vaccines would play "an essential role" in limiting the disease's spread, Health Minister Firass Abiad told reporters in the capital as he announced the first batch. He did not specify how many more were on the way.

Standing next to Abiad, the ambassador from former colonial power France said the delivery comprised more than 13,000 doses donated by her government, while urging Lebanese authorities to address the outbreak's causes.

"The origins of this epidemic, in which public health is at stake, must also be treated," Anne Grillo told reporters. The outbreak was "a new and worrying illustration of the critical decline in public provision of access to water and sanitary services in Lebanon."

In the Bebnine field hospital, two young boys sat next to each other on one hospital bed, while a mother waited anxiously to confirm if her son, lying limp on another bed and being treated by a doctor and a nurse, had also caught the disease.

Nearby, Syrian children in a makeshift refugee camp played in dirty water chocked with rubbish and medical waste and fed by an outflow from an open pipe.

The World Health Organization has linked cholera's comeback in Lebanon to an outbreak in neighbouring Syria, to where it had spread from Afghanistan via Iran and Iraq.(Reuters)