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Deeply sad
So many young souls lost
Watching the parents waiting and knowing that every moment is a moment closer to knowing they'll not hug them again. Hugged my kids extra hard today.
As the official death toll rose to 86, divers finally made their way to a main dining hall of the submerged ferry, where they feared they may find the bodies of many of the 210 passengers still missing. Most of those unaccounted for are students from Darwon High School in Ansan, near Seoul, who were on a school trip to the southern tourist island of Jeju. The 68-year-old captain, Lee Joon-seok, and two crew members a helmsman and a 25-year-old third mate were arrested last week on suspicion of negligence and abandoning people in need. The third mate was steering at the time of the accident Wednesday in a challenging area where she had not steered before. The captain was not on the bridge at the time. Four other crew members have been detained, and prosecutors say they are weighing possible arrest warrants for two more.
The captain, who was one of the first people rescued from the ferry, initially told passengers to stay in their rooms and waited more than half an hour to issue an evacuation order. By then, the vessel had listed so far that many of the people most likely were unable to escape. "What the captain and part of the crew did is unfathomable from the viewpoint of common sense -- unforgivable, murderous behavior," Park said at a Cabinet briefing Monday. The comments were posted on the website of the presidential Blue House. Instead of following a marine traffic controller's instructions to "make the passengers escape," Park said, the captain "told the passengers to stay put while they themselves became the first to escape." "Legally and ethically," the president said, "this is an unimaginable act."
A transcript released by the Korean coast guard Sunday shows the ship, which carried 476 people, was crippled by confusion and indecision well after it began listing. About 30 minutes after the Sewol began tilting, a crew member repeatedly asked a marine traffic controller whether passengers would be rescued if they abandoned the ship off South Korea's southern coast. "Even if you can't use your speaker, do your best to go out and ensure that your passengers wear life jackets or thick clothes," dispatchers said. "If our passengers evacuate, will they be immediately rescued?" the ship inquired. "Let them float even with life rings. Hurry!" the dispatcher said, adding that "the captain should make a final decision." Lee has said he delayed ordering an evacuation of the 476 people on board because of strong current in the cold waters 12 miles off Jindo island. He said anyone who went into the ocean could have drifted away before rescue boats arrived.
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Senior prosecutor Ahn Sang-don told reporters Monday that two first mates, one second mate and a chief engineer are also accused of abandoning the ship.
Ahn says prosecutors are considering whether to ask a court for a formal arrest warrant that would allow for a longer period of investigation. South Koreans can only be detained for 48 hours without a court-issued formal arrest warrant.
The ferry's captain and two other crewmembers were previously formally arrested on suspicion of negligence and abandoning people in need.
Sixty-four bodies have been recovered, and about 240 people are still missing.
Prosecutor says 4 ferry crewmembers detained
President Park must put measures in place to make sure something like this never happens again...even if that means employing foreigners to run the ferry/transport system, and foreign captains and crews to sail these ferries.
Seems to me that lower and wider ferries are needed.
Also ferry trips cancelled in bad weather.
Korea is building giant ships for the rest of the world...time it built itself some unflippable and unsinkable ferries.
Also, ban all school excursions.
If the students had all stayed at school they'd still be alive today.
President Park must put measures in place to make sure something like this never happens again...even if that means employing foreigners to run the ferry/transport system, and foreign captains and crews to sail these ferries.
Seems to me that lower and wider ferries are needed.
Also ferry trips cancelled in bad weather.
Korea is building giant ships for the rest of the world...time it built itself some unflippable and unsinkable ferries.
Also, ban all school excursions.
If the students had all stayed at school they'd still be alive today.
You're a fucking moron. You really are. Koreans were navigating those waters for a thousand years before your ancestors were ever sent to that penal colony of yours to cook shrimp on the barbie, asshole. YOU couldn't navigate a bathtub without hurting yourself. Everything you post is - purposefully - offensive. Discussion of this tragedy is NOT the fucking venue for you to play games with your thinly veiled 'hate everything Asian' agenda, douchebag.
President Park must put measures in place to make sure something like this never happens again...even if that means employing foreigners to run the ferry/transport system, and foreign captains and crews to sail these ferries.
Seems to me that lower and wider ferries are needed.
Also ferry trips cancelled in bad weather.
Korea is building giant ships for the rest of the world...time it built itself some unflippable and unsinkable ferries.
Also, ban all school excursions.
If the students had all stayed at school they'd still be alive today.
You're a fucking moron. You really are. Koreans were navigating those waters for a thousand years before your ancestors were ever sent to that penal colony of yours to cook shrimp on the barbie, asshole. YOU couldn't navigate a bathtub without hurting yourself. Everything you post is - purposefully - offensive. Discussion of this tragedy is NOT the fucking venue for you to play games with your thinly veiled 'hate everything Asian' agenda, douchebag.
Discussion of the tragedy, exactly.
Surely you don't want a repeat of this tragedy.
Koreans might've been navigating these waters for a thousand years, but now this has happened ...and things must change.
You're a fucking moron. You really are. Koreans were navigating those waters for a thousand years before your ancestors were ever sent to that penal colony of yours to cook shrimp on the barbie, asshole. YOU couldn't navigate a bathtub without hurting yourself. Everything you post is - purposefully - offensive. Discussion of this tragedy is NOT the fucking venue for you to play games with your thinly veiled 'hate everything Asian' agenda, douchebag.
Discussion of the tragedy, exactly.
Surely you don't want a repeat of this tragedy.
Koreans might've been navigating these waters for a thousand years, but now this has happened ...and things must change.
There is absolutely nothing on this earth that "must" happen because a little nobody like you says so. Get that through your Foster's fog, Dundee. What you are really doing here is completely transparent and completely offensive.
Discussion of the tragedy, exactly.
Surely you don't want a repeat of this tragedy.
Koreans might've been navigating these waters for a thousand years, but now this has happened ...and things must change.
There is absolutely nothing on this earth that "must" happen because a little nobody like you says so. Get that through your Foster's fog, Dundee. What you are really doing here is completely transparent and completely offensive.
Says you.
Just because you say it doesn't make it true.
Cargo ferries for cargo only...and passenger ferries for passengers only...no more ferries like this one allowed.
That should be a new law.
The current system you seem to love so much;
.Cargo ferries for cargo only...and passenger ferries for passengers only...no more ferries like this one allowed.
That should be a new law.
You are an absolute idiot. You don't even understand what a ferry is. Do yourself a favor and STFU once in a while.
Looming in the background is a sensitive issue: When to bring in the cranes and begin the salvage effort by cutting up and raising the submerged vessel. The government has warned that the work might eliminate air pockets that could be sustaining survivors, but for some relatives that is a long-lost hope. "Now we think we have to deal with this realistically," said Pyun Yong-gi, whose 17-year-old daughter is among the missing. "We don't want the bodies to decay further, so we want them to pull out the bodies as quickly as they can," Pyun said on Jindo island, where recovered bodies are taken for families to identify.
That view is not shared among all relatives of the missing, however. One of them, Jang Jong-ryul, was sensitive about the mere mention of the word "salvage" and said most families don't want to think about it. The number of corpses recovered has risen sharply since the weekend, when divers battling strong currents and low visibility were finally able to enter the submerged vessel. But Koh Myung-seok, spokesman for the government-wide emergency task force, said the work is becoming more difficult, and divers must now break through cabin walls. "The lounge is one big open space, so once in it we got our search done straight away. But in the case of the cabins, we will have to break down the walls in between because they are all compartments," Koh said.
The government has not said when it intends to begin the salvage effort, though it has said it will be considerate of families of the missing. "Even if there is only one survivor," Koh said, "our government will do its best to rescue that person, and then we will salvage the ferry." For some relatives of the missing, speed in recovering the dead is becoming more important than shrinking hopes that their loved ones might still be alive. "I've seen the bodies and they are starting to smell. It inflicts a new wound for the parents to see the bodies decomposed," Pyun said. He and other relatives have set a deadline of Thursday for the government to recover all the bodies, though he concedes they have no way to enforce it. "We are not the ones who are actually doing it, so we know that there is nothing we can do," Pyun said.
The victims of the April 16 disaster are overwhelmingly students of a single high school in Ansan, near Seoul. More than three-quarters of the 323 students are dead or missing, while nearly two-thirds of the other 153 people on board survived. The funeral halls in Ansan are already full, Oh Sang-yoon of the task force center said in a statement. He said the center "is taking measures to accommodate additional bodies by placing mortuary refrigerators at the funeral halls in Ansan," and directing mourning families to funeral homes in nearby cities. Twenty-two of the 29 members of the ferry's crew survived, and 11, including Capt. Lee Joon-seok, have been arrested or detained in connection with the investigation. Two of the crew were arrested Wednesday, senior prosecutor Ahn Sang-don said. Ahn said an analysis of photos and video on the ship before its sinking showed the captain and other arrested crew members didn't rescue passengers, though it was their duty. Ahn said the crew members were at the ship's steering room or engine room together before fleeing the Sewol earlier than passengers.
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The middle-aged man stands in line, patiently waiting. He's wearing the de facto uniform of the Seoul businessman, a fitted black suit and thin tie. He's driven an hour to be here at the memorial site at Ansan, joining the 100,000 mourners paying their respects before the school portraits of children who will never grow old. "I'm a father of two kids," he weeps, his hand firmly over his chest, as if to press in a breaking heart. "I just am very sorry because I can do nothing for these families. I just want to come here to say I'm very sorry to these families." He knew no one aboard the Sewol ferry -- his life in Seoul should be blissfully separate from the unfolding disaster at sea. But he embodies the grief, guilt and anger that leaves virtually no one in South Korea untouched.
Nation in yellow
The main road into Jindo is lined with yellow. Every 6 feet, another yellow ribbon waves in the wind of the passing cars. At Danwon High School in Ansan, where the junior class lost three quarters of its students in the ferry disaster, yellow ribbons are tied at the gates. But these ribbons didn't start at the disaster site or the school. In the nation that refers to itself as the most wired in the world, South Korea's ribbons began online, as a simple yellow square with the outline of a bow. University students designed the image and began to spread it on an instant messaging site in South Korea called Kakao Talk on April 19. The meaning began as a hopeful one, "one small step, big miracle." As the death toll continues to rise, it's evolved into a national sign of grief.
People are tying ribbons to their homes and schools across the country. The ribbons prominently appear on television news programs nearly every half hour, somber music sometimes playing underneath the slow-motion images of the yellow across the country. The prim presenters of South Korea's television programs, whose female anchors tend to favor hot pink and royal blue, are all wearing grey and black suits. One story dominates the news channels -- the Sewol ferry disaster, from the investigation to the national mourning. On Korean language Twitter and Facebook, users share their grief in short messages with a yellow ribbon. Overwhelmingly, the messages tend to focus on a sense of rage and helplessness. "I am sorry that I couldn't rescue you and help you," Twitter uses @sbja22 wrote.
Children, a nation's treasure
The boy, with the family name of Choi, called the emergency 119 number which put him through to the fire service, which in turn forwarded him to the coastguard two minutes later. That was followed by about 20 other calls from children to the emergency number, a fire service officer told Reuters. The Sewol ferry sank on April 16 on a routine trip south from the port of Incheon to the traditional holiday island of Jeju.
More than 300 people, most of them students and teachers from one high school on a field trip, have died or are missing and presumed dead. The children were told to stay put in their cabins, where they waited for further orders. They paid for their obedience with their lives. The confirmed death toll on Saturday was 187.
A relative of a missing passenger onboard the capsized Sewol ferry cries at a port in Jindo
Choi's body was found on Wednesday, a week after the sinking, at the back of the fourth deck. "I was so angry at the reality that all I can do is look at the sea and pray, but I am so grateful that he has been found and he is back," his father told the Kukmin Ilbo newspaper. "If only he had been wearing a life jacket, I wouldn't be this heartbroken... He didn't have time to call his mum and dad... He reported it to 119 and he's back now. I am so proud of him."
Grieving parents were taken by a smaller ferry to the sunken vessel on the day after the disaster, wrapped in blankets against the wind and rain. A witness quoted one mother crying to the sky: "It's my child's tears."
"I DON'T MIND DYING"
But the lighthearted atmosphere soon turned serious as the listing worsened. Fear began building, and one student asked, "Am I really going to die?" The shaky video ( HTTP://APNE.WS/R7IRBX ) - at times poignant and heartbreaking as the teens said last words to their loved ones - was found on the cellphone belonging to 17-year-old Park Su-hyeon when his body was recovered after the disaster on the morning of April 16 off South Korea.
The boy's father, Park Jong-dae, provided it Thursday to The Associated Press, saying he wanted to show the world the conditions aboard the Sewol as it sank. He earlier released it to select South Korean media. Information such as video can be recovered from micro SD cards in cellphones even if the device is submerged. More than 300 people are dead or missing in the disaster, which has plunged South Korea into mourning and touched off anger and shame. About 220 bodies, mostly from inside the submerged vessel, have been recovered. More than 80 percent of the victims were students from a high school in Ansan, south of Seoul, on their way to the tourist island of Jeju for a school trip.
The group of teens in Park Su-hyeon's video alternated between bluster, attempts at humor and unmistakable fear. Only one could be seen wearing a life jacket at the beginning of the clips, which started at 8:52 a.m. and ended, with a small break between them, at 9:09 a.m., when everyone appeared to be wearing them. Some of the students struggled as they tried to buckle the life jackets. As the listing worsened, they joked about "final commemorative pictures" and "defying gravity" by trying to walk on the walls. "It's like we're becoming the Titanic," one student said.
At 8:53 a.m., less than two minutes into the video and two minutes before a crew member on the bridge made the ferry's first distress call, one student said: "Am I really going to die?" At the start the video, a message blared from the ferry's loudspeakers: "Don't move away from your places and brace for any possible accidents." In subsequent announcements, passengers were again told to stay put, even as some questioned whether they should flee. The last message from the bridge came at 9:08: "We're again announcing: For passengers who can wear life vests, please wear them now. Never move away from your places."
That warning came eight minutes after a Sewol crew member told a marine traffic official, "The body of the ship has tilted, and it's impossible to move," according to a transcript of communications with the ferry. After the passengers were ordered to stay in their cabins, Capt. Lee Joon-seok took at least a half-hour to order an evacuation. It is unclear whether that order was ever relayed to passengers. Lee has said he delayed the evacuation because of worries about sending passengers into cold waters and fast currents before rescuers arrived. Lee could be seen in a separate video released by the coast guard leaping from the ferry in his underwear onto a rescue boat while many passengers were still in the sinking ship.
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It s possible the video was stored on a micro SD card that many phones use for additional storage, said Ritch Blasi, senior vice president for mobile and wireless at the consulting firm Comunicano. Since an SD card doesn't contain electrical components or moving parts, it can be removed from a mobile device and the information stored on it can be retrieved -even if the phone that housed it is damaged.
In fact, SanDisk, a major maker of micro SD cards, touts that many of its cards are tested to withstand up to 72 hours in one meter of salt or fresh water. In addition, phones can be programmed to automatically upload material such as photos and videos periodically to cloud storage, where other people can retrieve them later, Blasi said.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/storie...ME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2014-05-01-17-02-28
According to China's Xinhua news agency, as of Saturday evening, 236 people have been confirmed dead as eight more bodies were recovered from the sunken vessel. The number of missing passengers fell to 66, with those rescued remaining unchanged at 174. The deadly disaster entered the 18th day since the 6,825-tonne ferry Sewol capsized off the country's southwestern coast on April 16.
Among 64 passenger cabins where bodies were believed to be trapped inside, 58 cabins have been searched. The remaining cabins were hard to enter as floating objects such as furniture and junks delayed divers' entrance into the rooms. The area is famous for the second-fastest tidal currents in the country. Divers sought to plunge into waters when the currents became slower.
The 487 passengers aboard the submerged ship included 325 high school students and 24 teachers on their way for a class trip. Nationwide mourning ceremony has been held in a joint memorial altars.
BERNAMA - Death Toll Rises To 236 In South Korean Ferry Sinking Disaster
The 53-year-old was on his first dive at the site and suffered breathing difficulties after reaching a depth of 25m, coast guard spokesman Ko Myung-suk told journalists. The diver, who was identified only by his surname, Lee, lost consciousness and was pronounced dead at hospital, Ko added. Full details of what happened have yet to emerge, but Yonhap news agency reported he was a veteran crew member of private firm Undine Marine Industries, a specialist in maritime rescue work. Lee was the first victim among scores of divers who have been engaged in the grim task of finding and retrieving bodies from the sunken ship in hazardous and challenging conditions, such as fast currents and silty water. About 10 other divers have received treatment for exhaustion and decompression sickness since the operation began.
It had been 20 days since the 6,825 tonne Sewol capsized and sank with 476 people on board most of them schoolchildren off the southern coast. South Korean President Park Geun-hye yesterday issued a fresh apology for her governments failure to prevent the tragedy. The confirmed death toll stood at 263, while 39 people remain missing. As the president who should protect the lives of the people, I dont know how to express my condolences to the bereaved families. I feel sorry and my heart is heavy with grief, Park said. Greed for material gains prevailed over safety regulations and such irresponsible behavior resulted in the loss of precious lives. Park had apologized for her governments failure to combat systemic and regulatory evils that may have contributed to the accident and vowed to sternly punish any culprits. The ferry sinking is one of South Koreas worst peacetime disasters, made all the more shocking by the loss of so many young lives.
Of those on board, 325 were students from the same high school in Ansan, just south of Seoul. All 15 crew members, including the captain, have been arrested for abandoning the ship while hundreds were trapped inside. Prosecutors also arrested three officials from the ferry operator Chonghaejin Marine Co last week on charges of loading the ferry well beyond its legal limit. Yonhap news agency, citing investigators, said yesterday that the Sewol was loaded with just 580 tonnes of ballast water only 37 percent of the legal requirement in order to carry more cargo. This made the ship dangerously imbalanced. Investigators said on Monday that the crew had failed to alert passengers to the imminent danger for 40 minutes after they sent distress signals and became the first to leave the ship aboard a rescue boat, leaving hundreds of passengers trapped inside the sinking ship, Yonhap said.
Frogman dies working at S Korea ferry disaster site - Taipei Times
Government and civilian divers were mobilized after the ferry sank on April 16, leaving more than 300 people dead or missing. A boom and a moan were heard via communication devices then fellow divers pulled the man to the surface as he fell unconscious, government task force spokesman Ko Myung-seok told a televised briefing.
The diver was bleeding on his face, received CPR and was taken to a hospital on a helicopter but was declared dead there, Ko said. The man whose surname was Lee was 46. His exact cause of his death wasn't known. Ko said Lee was cutting open parts of the ship exterior to make searches easier. No bodies have been retrieved since May 21 as heavy objects like desks and cabinets have made it difficult for divers to navigate through unsearched parts of the ship, according to task force officials.
Since the sinking, 288 bodies have been recovered but 16 people are still missing. Only 172 people survived. A 53-year-old civilian diver died earlier this month after becoming unconscious during a search attempt. He was pulled to the surface after losing communication five minutes into the search. Officials have said they won't lift up the ship until family members of the missing people approves amid worries that works to hoist the ship may lead to damaging the bodies of those people.
2nd diver dies in search of South Korean ferry
The defendants are surrounded by hostility in South Korea, all the way up to President Park Geun-hye, who has called the crew's actions murderous. Private lawyers have abandoned their cases. Even the family of a deceased crew member who was praised as a hero speaks of him with shame. The anger raises questions about the fairness of the crew members' impending trial, details of which will be worked out at a June 10 court hearing in Gwangju. All surviving crew members responsible for the ship's navigation have been charged with negligence and with failing to do their duty to protect passengers in the April 16 disaster. Authorities have recovered 288 bodies and continue to look for 16 others in the wrecked ship off South Korea's southwestern coast.
There are allegations that the ferry operator, Chonghaejin Marine Co., dangerously overloaded the vessel and gave crew members inadequate emergency training, and some company officials also have been arrested. But they may be better able to defend themselves than the crew. The fugitive head of Chonghaejin, Yoo Byung-eun, is a billionaire. The Sewol's captain, Lee Joon-seok, reportedly made 2.7 million won ($2,635) a month. And it is the crew members, not the company higher-ups, who appeared in widely televised "perp walks" in the first weeks of the disaster, when fury was at its highest. "People say this is a public opinion trial. To put it in other words, it is a witch trial," said Kang Jung-min, a lawyer who met the captain and two crew of the Sewol while they were in custody in April. "It is possible that rulings would correspond with public sentiment, rather than judgments based on objective facts and legal principles."
Middle school students bow during a memorial service for sunken ferry Sewol chief officer Yang Dae-hong, a hero, in Incheon, South Korea. In his last phone call to his wife while the ship was sinking, Yang told her where to find savings for their teenage childrens college tuition and hung up saying he had to go save students. His body was found one month after the accident. His brother said his face was unrecognizable and his walkie-talkie was found along with his body. The banner at top reads: "Sewol ferry chief officer Yang Dae-hong was not a coward to the end."
Kang cited early media reports about the captain and crewmembers that rendered them as evil. For example, South Korean media reported that the captain was drying his money at the hospital while passengers were still trapped in the ship, which Kang said the captain denied. The court will guarantee the rights of both the defendants and the victims and faithfully investigate evidence for a speedy and fair trial, the Gwangju District Court said in a statement. Even the family of chief officer Yang Dae-hong, who died on the ship while rescuing others, said a pang of guilt has not escaped them.
In his last phone call to his wife while the ship was sinking, Yang told her where to find savings for their children's college tuition, then said he had to go save students and hung up. Survivors said the 45-year-old returned to the sinking ship after helping them escape to safety. "People call him a hero. But he was crew on Sewol and he was responsible for taking care of the passengers. So he is a criminal," said Yang's eldest brother, Yang Dae-hwan. "If my brother is a criminal, I'm also responsible as his older brother. "I want to spend the rest of my life keeping victims deeply in my heart," he said.
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Prosecutors also requested that a district court sentence 11 other crewmembers up to 30 years in prison on charges that they were negligent and failed to protect passengers when the ferry was sinking April 16, South Korean media reported. Most of those who died in the disaster were high school students on a school trip. Capt. Lee Joon-seok and three other crewmembers from the ferry Sewol were indicted on homicide charges, alleging they were negligent and failed to protect passengers when the ferry sank. Eleven other crewmembers were indicted on less serious charges. The 15 crew on trial were among the first group of people to leave when the ship began badly listing.
An unidentified family member cries as she and others demand maximum punishment for crewmembers of the ferry Sewol during their trial in Gwangju, South Korea, Monday, Oct. 27, 2014. The ferry sank in April, killing more than 300 people.
The Gwangju District Court said it couldn't immediately confirm the news reports. The sinking, one of South Korea's deadliest disasters in decades, caused nationwide grief and fury, with authorities blaming overloading of cargo, improper storage, untimely rescue efforts and other negligence for the incident. More than six months after the sinking, the bodies of 294 people have been retrieved, while 10 others have not been found. Lee has apologized for abandoning passengers, but says he didn't know his action would lead to the mass deaths. In a video taken by the coast guard on the day of the sinking, he was seen escaping the ferry in his underwear to a rescue boat while many passengers were still on the sinking ship.
Many student survivors have said they were repeatedly ordered over a loudspeaker to stay on the sinking ship and that they didn't remember any evacuation order being given before they helped each other flee the vessel. Lee has said he issued an evacuation order for passengers. But he initially told reporters days after his arrest that he withheld the evacuation order because rescuers had yet to arrive and he feared for the passengers' safety in the cold, swift waters.
South Korea seeks death penalty for ferry captain - Pacific - Stripes
