The Latest Breaking News from Seoul

A nightmarish disaster whose victims were predominantly the young. A right-of-centre leader whose popularity is sliding. A political flashpoint potentially in the making once the nation absorbs the tragedy.

Country firing close to South Korean waters in response to Washington-Seoul drills, as it also sells missiles to Russia

North Korea fired 100 artillery rounds into a maritime "buffer zone" Wednesday, Seoul's military said, hours after Pyongyang launched a series of missile tests including one that landed near South Korean waters. "North Korea fired around 100 artillery rounds from the Kosong area in Kangwon into the 'buffer zone' north…

"It looks like people will be squashed to death," said a person who called police nearly three hours before the first fatality. On Wednesday, the team investigating the incident raided Seoul police.

South Korea’s National Police Agency has raided local police departments in the capital, Seoul, and the city’s Yongsan district office as it investigates whether official ineptitude contributed to a deadly crowd surge that killed 156 people in the neighborhood of Itaewon

As South Korea mourns the deaths of more than 150 people in a Halloween party crush, many people - even those not directly involved - are dealing with trauma and a search for answers that has at times blamed the victims, a psychiatry expert says.

South Korea later fired three missiles in response to the North. Seoul's President Yoon Suk-yeol called Pyongyang's launch an "effective territorial invasion", the BBC reported. Read on for details:

Seoul authorities send residents of an eastern island to underground shelters as it issues an air raid alert amid increasing tensions in the area

One missile landed close to South Korean territorial waters, south of the Northern Limit Line, military chiefs in Seoul say