A foreign BTS fan said she and her friends did not cause the panic in a subway train on Aug. 6 that injured seven people.
The fan, with the X (formerly Twitter) username @egcaniza, made the statement after they were accused as the cause of the panic in the subway.
The aftermath of the panic in a subway train in Seoul on Aug. 6 (Photos from @tom7890_ on X)
BTS' Suga revealing his tattoo during a live broadcast on the Weverse app after his concert on Aug. 6 (Screenshot from Weverse video)
According to the police, when the subway train stopped at Sinnonhyeon Station, people ran and scrambled to get out, causing injury to seven people including six who were brought to the hospital.
This after misinformation spread such as a subway passenger with a weapon and smell of gas.
Koreans are on edge after a series of stabbing incidents happened including a man who attacked at Sillim Station, killing one and injuring three others.
The fan and her companions watched Suga’s concert at KSPO Dome in Seoul and boarded the subway after the event.
She uploaded a video of them screaming inside the subway train when Suga held a live broadcast on the Weverse app after the concert and showed his "7" tattoo.
One Korean netizen posted on X on Aug. 6, saying, “It's not a knife attack or biochemical terrorism at Sinnonhyeon Station, so please don't create a panic atmosphere with false information anymore.”
“Foreigners next to me screamed while watching the video, but since the subway was crowded, people misunderstood and ran away. I also made a police statement,” the netizen wrote.
Several Korean media alleged that the BTS fans’ screams caused the subway commotion.
Egcaniza issued a statement to say that they did not cause the panic.
“I'm so sorry for going private for a bit. I just needed to collect my words for the explanation. To be clear we were not on the same line 9 train that had the gas smell where the incident occurred and where fire department was called,” she said.
She added, “This incident occurred around 8:36pm on the train heading to Gimpo Airport (I attached an article for proof) and we did not board that train. We were on a later train that was around 8:29pm heading to Sports Complex.”
“We did not reach sports complex till around 8:35pm and this is still a few more stops from Sinnonhyeon Station where the incident happened. THESE WERE NOT THE SAME TRAINS SO PLEASE stop dragging bts and army into what happened,” the fan added.
According to her, “The incident was caused by a gas smell. However, still want to apologize again about how loud we were in a public place. This was not the right way to act and there is no excuse to defend this. We all know army are kind hearted people who intend no harm. l wanted to come here again to clear all the confusion between the video and the incident. Sorry it took a while to post the explanation I just wanted to make sure to get all the details correct.”
In another post, the fan said, “For those army who decided to cuss and send threats, that is not how bts raised us. i understand being upset but that was so uncalled for. it was scary which is why i went on private for a few hours. please don’t do that to anyone again.”
When the police searched the train, they did not find any passenger with a weapon.