White flowers of mourning and condolence gifts lie near the narrow alleyways of Itaewon, the popular nightlife district of Seoul, where scores of Halloween revelers died in a stampede on Saturday evening.

As of Tuesday morning, the     1    (die) toll from the disaster was at least 156, according to South Korea’s Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters. Most of the victims were     2     their 20s, with 12 of them as young as 10. A total of 151 people     3     (injure) in the stampede, 29 of them     4    (serious).

The tragedy was the deadliest such incident in South Korea’s history and the worst peacetime disaster the nation has seen since 2014, when 304 people died in a ferry accident.

Twenty-six foreigners from 14 countries were among the Itaewon victims, including five from Iran, four from China, four from Russia, two from the United States and two from Japan.

As many as 100,000 people dressed in     5    (costume) gathered in Itaewon to celebrate South Korea’s first public Halloween event since the government lifted COVID-19 restrictions and social distancing rules. The accident happened at around 10:30 pm,    6       people were trapped and crushed as the crowd surged into a sloping alley less than 4 meters wide.

President Xi Jinping sent     7     message on Sunday to South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol,     8    (express) deep condolences over the victims’ deaths and sincere sympathies to the injured and families of the bereaved.

Xi regretted that several Chinese nationals were killed or injured in the accident, and hoped that South Korea would spare no effort       9    (treat) the injured and deal with follow-up issues appropriately.

A week-long period of national mourning is being held in South Korea, with all state and government agencies flying flags at half-mast. The Chinese embassy in Seoul is among the diplomatic missions that have expressed condolences to victims of the disaster.

People across South Korea are paying       10    (they) respects to the victims at mourning altars laden with white chrysanthemums. Yoon and first lady Kim Keon-hee visited an altar in Seoul Plaza in front of City Hall.

Traffic deaths     1     (increase) in the past several years. U.S. traffic death toll reached a 16-year high in 2021, with nearly 43,000 deaths.

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimated that 9,560 people died in motor vehicle     2     (crash) between January and March, up 7% from the same period the year before. That would make it the deadliest first three months of the year since 2002.

The auto-safety regulator said the numbers     3     (release) on Wednesday are not accurate enough and remain to be revised in coming months. The report doesn’t include information on     4     the crashes happened, but Dr. Cliff said one third of traffic deaths are     5     (typical) caused by drivers influenced by alcohol or other substances.

A number of issues are causing     6     rise in traffic deaths, Mr. Adkins said, including careless driving and fewer police officers on the road.     7     (see) a police car gets drivers to slow down, he said. He also said roads aren’t designed to make it safe for bicyclists     8     (share) the road with cars.

The regulator said the state with the biggest increase of deaths was Delaware,     9     more than doubled its traffic deaths to 50 in the first quarter, compared with 19 in the same period the year before. They fell the most in Rhode Island, dropping by 50%     10     an estimated seven deaths.