Fears rise for missing

in SKorea ferry sinking

Youkyung Lee and Foster Klug, The Associated Press, Mokpo, South Korea | World |
Thu, April 17 2014, 9:11 AM
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Strong currents and bad visibility hampered rescuers Thursday in the search for
287 passengers still missing more than 24 hours after their ferry flipped onto i
ts side and filled with cold water off the southern coast of South Korea, causin
g fury among families waiting for word of passengers who were mostly high school
students.
Nine were confirmed dead, but many expect that number will rise sharply because
the missing have now spent more than a day either trapped in the ferry or in the
cold seawater.
There were 475 people aboard and frantic parents have gathered at the high schoo
l student's school near Seoul and in Mokpo, in the south of the country, not far
from where the ferry slipped beneath the surface until only the blue-tipped, fo
rward edge of the keel was visible.
Parents, siblings and other relatives of three high school students killed in th
e sinking wailed and sobbed as ambulances at a hospital in Mokpo took the studen
ts' bodies to the city near Seoul where their high school is located. The famili
es, who spent a mostly sleepless night at the hospital, followed the ambulances
in their own cars.
The family of one of the victims, 24-year-old teacher Choi Hye-jung, spoke about
a young woman who loved to boast of how her students would come to her office a
nd give her hugs. She loved teaching and loved her students and was excited abou
t her first-ever school trip to Jeju island. There were 325 students on board, h
eaded to Jeju for a four-day trip.
"She was very active and wanted to be a good leader," her father, Choi Jae-kyu,
53, said at Mokpo Jung-Ang Hospital while waiting for the arrival of his daughte
r's body. Choi's mother, sitting on a bench at the hospital, sobbed quietly with
her head bent down on her knee.
Meanwhile, 20 divers tried to get inside the ship's wreckage but couldn't becaus
e of the current, the coast guard said. More than 400 rescuers searched nearby w
aters overnight and into Thursday morning.
The coast guard said it found two more bodies in the sea Thursday morning, pushi
ng the death toll to nine. The two were believed to be men in their 30s and 20s
but authorities are trying to confirm their identity, said an official from the
coast guard's press team who would not give her name because she did not have pe
rmission to speak to the media.
Dozens were injured. Coast guard officials put the number of survivors early Thu
rsday at 179.
It was still unknown why the ferry sank, but coast guard officials were intervie
wing the captain and crew. The Sewol, a 146-meter (480-foot) vessel that can hol
d more than 900 people, set sail Tuesday from Incheon, in northwestern South Kor
ea, on an overnight, 14-hour journey to the tourist island of Jeju.
The ferry was three hours from its destination when it sent a distress call afte
r it began listing to one side, according to the Ministry of Security and Public
Administration.
Passenger Kim Seong-mok told broadcaster YTN that after having breakfast, he fel
t the ferry tilt and then heard it crash into something. He said he was certain
that many people were trapped inside the ferry as water rushed in and the severe
tilt of the vessel kept them from reaching the exits.
Koo Bon-hee, 36, told The Associated Press that many people were trapped inside
by windows that were too hard to break.
"The rescue wasn't done well. We were wearing life jackets. We had time," Koo, w
ho was on a business trip to Jeju with a co-worker, said from a hospital bed in
Mokpo where he was treated for minor injuries. "If people had jumped into the wa
ter ... they could have been rescued. But we were told not to go out."
Oh Yong-seok, a 58-year-old crew member who escaped with about a dozen others, i
ncluding the captain, told AP that rescue efforts were hampered by the ferry's s
evere tilt. "We couldn't even move one step. The slope was too big," Oh said.
The Sewol's wreckage is in waters a little north of Byeongpung Island, which is
not far from the mainland and about 470 kilometers (290 miles) from Seoul.
"We cannot give up," said South Korean President Park Geun-hye, after a briefing
in Seoul. "We have to do our best to rescue even one passenger."
White House spokesman Jay Carney said the U.S. and its 7th Fleet stood ready to
assist, including the USS Bonhomme Richard, which was in the region.
The last major ferry disaster in South Korea was in 1993, when 292 people were k
illed.
TV stations broadcast live pictures Wednesday of the listing Sewol as passengers
clambered over the side, jumped into the sea or were hoisted up by helicopters.
At least 87 vessels and 18 aircraft swarmed around the stricken ferry.
The water temperature in the area was about 12 degrees Celsius (54 Fahrenheit),
cold enough to cause signs of hypothermia after about 1 hours of exposure, accord
ing to an emergency official who spoke on condition of anonymity because departm
ent rules did not allow talking to the media. Officials said the ocean was 37 me
ters (121 feet) deep in the area.
The survivors wet, stunned and many without shoes were brought to nearby Jindo I
sland, where medical teams wrapped them in pink blankets and checked for injurie
s before taking them to a cavernous gymnasium.
As the search dragged on, families of the missing gathered at a nearby dock, som
e crying and holding each other. Boats circled the sunken ferry into the night,
illuminated by red flares.
Angry shouts could be heard when Prime Minister Chung Hong-won visited a shelter
where relatives of the missing passengers waited for news. Some yelled that the
government should have sent more divers to search the wreckage.
The numbers of passengers, as well as the dead and missing, fluctuated throughou
t the day. As of early Thursday, South Korean authorities estimated 475 people w
ere on the ferry. Of that total, there were 325 students and 15 teachers from Da
nwon High School in Ansan, a city near Seoul, according to a relief team set up
by Gyeonggi province.
Many South Korean high schools organize trips for first- or second-year students
, and Jeju is a popular destination. The students on the ferry were in their sec
ond year, which would make most of them 16 or 17.
The Sewol, which travels twice a week between Incheon and Jeju, was built in Jap
an in 1994 and could carry a maximum of 921 people, 180 vehicles and 152 shippin
g containers, according to the Yonhap news agency. (***)