After tragic crush, lost shoes await owners at Seoul gym

Shoes are among a huge collection of items found in Itaewon following South Korea's deadliest crowd surge, they were arranged at a temporary lost and found center at a gym in Seoul, South Korea, Tuesday, Nov. 1, 2022. [AP]

Days after more than 150 Halloween revellers died in South Korea's deadliest crowd surge, a quiet but wrenching reminder of the disaster remained Tuesday: Hundreds of abandoned shoes have been laid out in neat rows in a badminton court in the capital, Seoul.

Police have assembled the crumpled tennis shoes, loafers and Chuck Taylors - part of 1.5 tons of personal objects left by victims and survivors of the tragedy - in hopes that the owners, or their friends and family, will retrieve them.