4Minute cancel public events

Members of K-pop girl group 4Minute have cancelled their public appearances at Seoul Fashion Week in a show of respect to the victims of the tragedy at an outdoor pop concert they performed last Friday.

According to United States K-pop news site KpopStarz, Gayoon (Heo Ga Yoon) did not attend the Lucky Chouette 2015 S/S Collection event last Sunday and HyunA (Kim Hyun Ah) would not be turning up at the Steve J & Yoni P fashion show yesterday.

Last Friday, 16 concertgoers died after the ventilation grate they were standing on to get a better view of 4Minute's performance gave way and they fell 19m into an underground carpark. Eleven were injured in the fall.

According to international music site Billboard, 4Minute's record label Cube Entertainment issued a statement saying: "We can't express how regretful they are for what happened. The concert was a multi-act concert shared by many artists.

"During 4Minute's performance, none of the members or staff was aware of the accident and completed their set. It wasn't until they arrived back in Seoul that they heard of the accident."

Besides 4Minute, the other acts scheduled to perform at the Pangyo Techno Valley Festival were Junggigo, 2BiC, T-ara, TransFixion and Cherry Filter. The show was held in Seongnam, south of Seoul.

Korean hip-hop trio Epik High also did their part to show their condolences for the tragedy.

Epik High, who were due to release their album last Saturday, announced that they will be postponing its release.

A South Korean official who was in charge of the concert's security measures was found dead last Saturday morning after he jumped off a building located near the accident.

He apparently committed suicide after posting an apology on Twitter, according to Korea Herald.

He said: "I have done my best to live a good life, but was faced with an accident that I never thought would happen. I am sorry for my colleagues and the ones who died in the accident."

This article was first published on Oct 21, 2014.
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