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I heard the news about the captain before I heard the news about the Vice Principal. My first impression of Korean culture based on this tragedy was based on the captain's behavior - and the behavior of other crew members. Their selfish behavior wasn't any different than the selfish behavior of anyone else in the world.I heard about this, and wondered why he would have done that. The link said he was rescued, so I'm still wondering.
Seems overly dramatic.
Simply means you do not understand the communal reciprocity and obligation in South Korean society.
Sad, but I am not surprised.
Wouldn't "communal reciprocity and obligation" dictate that the freaking captain commit suicide?
I heard about this, and wondered why he would have done that. The link said he was rescued, so I'm still wondering.
Seems overly dramatic.
Simply means you do not understand the communal reciprocity and obligation in South Korean society.
Sad, but I am not surprised.
I heard about this, and wondered why he would have done that. The link said he was rescued, so I'm still wondering.
Seems overly dramatic.
I heard about this, and wondered why he would have done that. The link said he was rescued, so I'm still wondering.
Seems overly dramatic.
Simply means you do not understand the communal reciprocity and obligation in South Korean society.
Sad, but I am not surprised.
Wouldn't "communal reciprocity and obligation" dictate that the freaking captain commit suicide?
I heard about this, and wondered why he would have done that. The link said he was rescued, so I'm still wondering.
Seems overly dramatic.
He may not have thought he could be rescued and wanted to take matters into his own hands, something I can understand. He also may have wanted any rescuers to bypass saving his life, and rush on to the youngsters screaming for theirs..
The victims 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 the ferry Sewol when it sank one week ago survived. Even with more than 150 people still missing, the funeral halls in Ansan are already full, Oh Sang-yoon of the government-wide emergency 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. On Jindo island, where bodies recovered from the ferry are taken, descriptions of the dead are read over a loudspeaker. Relatives rush over to the main notice board and peered at details added by an official. Some relatives cry out and run from the tent. Others stand red-eyed and shell-shocked.
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 task force spokesman Koh Myung-seok the work is becoming more difficult, and divers must now break through cabin walls to retrieve more bodies. "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. Twenty-two of the 29 members of the ferry's crew survived, and 11 have been arrested or detained in connection with the investigation. Two were arrested Wednesday, senior prosecutor Ang Sang-don said.
Searchers and divers look for people believed to have been trapped in the sunken ferry Sewol in the water off the southern coast near Jindo, south of Seoul, South Korea. One by one, coast guard officers carried the newly arrived bodies covered in white sheets from a boat to a tent on the dock of this island, the first step in identifying a sharply rising number of corpses from the South Korean ferry that sank nearly a week ago.
The captain, Lee Joon-seok, and two crew members were arrested Saturday on suspicion of negligence and abandoning people in need. On Tuesday, four crew members were arrested and another two were detained without arrest warrants. The four crew members arrested Tuesday talked to reporters after a court hearing, their faces hidden with caps, hooded sweatshirts and masks. One said they tried to correct the ferry's listing early on but "various devices, such as the balance weight, didn't work. So we reported the distress situation, according to the captain's judgment, and tried to launch the lifeboats, but the ferry was too tilted and we couldn't reach."
The captain has said he waited to issue an evacuation order because the current was strong, the water was cold and passengers could have drifted away before help arrived. But maritime experts said he could have ordered passengers to the deck - where they would have had a greater chance of survival - without telling them to abandon ship. Koh, of the task force, said bodies have mostly been found on the third and fourth floors of the ferry, where many passengers seemed to have gathered. Many students were housed in cabins on the fourth floor, near the stern of the ship, Koh said.
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Nearly a week after the sinking of the South Korean ferry, with rising outrage over a death count that could eventually top 300, the public verdict against the crew of the Sewol has been savage and quick. "Cowards!" social media users howled. "Unforgivable, murderous," President Park Geun-hye said Monday of the captain and some crew. Some fled the ferry, including the captain, but not all. At least seven of the 29 crew members are missing or dead, and several of those who survived stayed on or near the ship to help passengers. "His last words were, `I'm on my way to save the kids,'" Ahn So-hyun told reporters of what her husband, missing crew member Yang Dae-hong, told her by cellphone as the ship began to sink Wednesday. He was referring to the 323 high school students on the ferry, which was carrying a total of 476 people.
More than 100 people are confirmed dead and nearly 200 more are still missing. Relatives, as well as many other South Koreans, are enraged, lashing out at what they see as a botched rescue operation and, most vehemently, at the captain. He and two crew members have been arrested, accused of negligence and abandoning people in need. Six other crew members have been detained - two of them on Tuesday - though prosecutors have yet to obtain arrest warrants for them.
Captain Lee Joon-seok told passengers to stay in their cabins as the ferry listed and filled with water, then took at least half an hour to order an evacuation and apparently escaped on one of the first rescue boats. But passengers recall moments of quiet bravery from the crew. Passenger Koo Bon-hee, 36, told The Associated Press that there were not enough life jackets for everyone in the area on the third floor where he and others waited. So crew members - two men and two women - didn't wear any so that all the passengers could have one.
One of the first bodies recovered after the ferry sank was 22-year-old crew member Park Ji-young, who helped students evacuate until the last minute, even though she wasn't wearing a life vest, South Korean media reported. Witnesses told Yonhap news agency that she told students that crew members must stay on the ship until everyone else leaves, and that she would follow them after helping passengers. Crew members describe a rending dilemma as the ship went down. The late evacuation order meant that by the time the crew got off the bridge, the tilt of the ship was so great they could barely walk, let alone rescue passengers. Should they flee the sinking ship or risk their lives to save others trapped below?
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Korean culture is not too different from Western culture.
People are people the world over.
The captain shirked his responsibility and headed for the hills...he didn't want to die no matter what.
The Vice Principal, however, felt obligated and a deep, deep sense of remorse that unfortunately overwhelmed him so much that he took his life.
Same thing could happen here in the US of A.
People are people.
The group was crammed into a dormitory and all were wearing lifejackets, a South Korean Navy officer said. Some 183 bodies have been recovered from the Sewol, but scores of people are missing, presumed drowned. The head of the operation to retrieve bodies said on Friday he had "no idea" how long the ship search would take. There were 476 people on board, with many trapped inside as the ferry listed and sank within two hours of distress signals being sent. A total of 174 passengers were rescued. Many of those who died or are presumed dead were students and teachers from Danwon high school, south of Seoul. Furious relatives attacked the speed of the recovery operation on Friday in a confrontation with the fisheries minister and the coastguard chief.
'It's very stressful'
In a briefing to reporters on the southern island of Jindo, Navy Captain Kim Jin-Hwang described the difficult conditions that the divers were facing. He said one group had found the single dormitory room filled with the bodies of 48 students wearing lifejackets. The presence of so many victims in the cabin suggested many had run into the room when the ship tilted, correspondents said. "It's very stressful," Kim said, adding that the divers were all too aware of criticism over the speed of the search.
Officials say rescue teams are recovering around 30 bodies a day from the wreckage
Retrieving the bodies was far harder than finding them, he said, with divers unable to spend much longer than 10 minutes inside the ship at a time. "Just imagine a room that is flipped," one of the divers told the Associated Press news agency. "Everything is floating around, and it's hard to know exactly where they are." On a visit to Seoul on Friday, US President Barack Obama expressed his condolences for South Korea's "incredible loss" and offered America's solidarity. "So many were young students with their entire lives ahead of them," Mr Obama said. "I can only imagine what the parents are going through at the moment - the incredible heartache."
Around 90 expert divers are part of the operation but only 35 of the 111 rooms have been searched so far
Officials said rescuers are retrieving around 30 bodies a day but the bereaved families have demanded that all remaining bodies are removed from the ferry before the weekend. Search officials said just 35 of the 111 rooms had been searched so far. The government says it is "mobilising all available resources" towards the rescue effort but bad weather and stronger currents due on Saturday and Sunday are expected to hamper their efforts. Prosecutors are said to be investigating whether modifications made to the ferry made it more unstable. Factors under consideration include a turn made around the time the ship began to list, as well as wind, ocean currents and the freight it was carrying.
Relatives of passengers who died or remain missing are furious at the slow speed of the search operation
Reports have emerged indicating that the ship's sleeping cabins were refitted some time between 2012 and 2013, which experts say may have inadvertently affected the balance of the boat. Investigators on Friday said that life rafts and escape chutes on a sister ship to a sunken ferry were not working properly. The ferry's captain and 10 crew members have been arrested on charges ranging from criminal negligence to abandoning passengers. Prosecutors have also raided several businesses affiliated with the ferry operator, the Chonghaejin Marine Company, as part of an overall probe into corrupt management.
BBC News - South Korea ferry: Divers find 48 bodies in single room
There have been several reports in South Korean media this week of bodies going to the wrong families, with the error sometimes caught only after the remains were taken to a funeral home. An "action plan" released by the government-wide emergency task force acknowledged that "there have been cases where the victims were wrongly transferred." Remains will be transferred to families when there is a match using DNA testing or fingerprint or dental records, the task force said. The transfer will be temporary when a body is matched though identification or physical description, and authorities will wait for more authoritative evidence before making the transfer permanent.
Divers have recovered 183 bodies so far, but 119 remain missing and are feared dead in the dark rooms of the submerged vessel. Search officials including a navy spokesman and a diver said 35 of the ferry's 111 rooms have been searched so far, Yonhap news agency reported. They said 48 of the bodies recovered were found were in a single large room built to accommodate 38. The ferry sank April 16 on its way from Incheon port to the southern tourist island of Jeju. More than 80 percent of the 302 dead and missing are students from a single high school in Ansan, south of Seoul.
Obama arrived Friday afternoon at the Blue House, South Korea's presidential residence, and presented President Park Geun-hye with an American flag that flew over the White House the day the ship sank. His first South Korean visit since Park took office last year was aimed at issues including North Korea, but he noted that his trip comes at a time of "great sorrow." "So many were young students with their entire lives ahead of them," Obama said, invoking his two daughters, both close in age to many of the ferry victims. "I can only imagine what the parents are going through at this point, the incredible heartache."
Accepting the flag, Park drew a parallel between the way Americans pulled together after the 9/11 attacks and the resilience of South Koreans following one of the worst maritime disasters in their country's history. "The Korean people draw great strength from your kindness," she said. Obama also said he was donating a magnolia tree from the White House lawn to Danwon High School in Ansan in honor of the lives lost and as a symbol of friendship between the U.S. and South Korea.
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Concerns are growing among anguished families that the bodies of those who died in the sinking of a South Korean ferry may never be found, as search teams suspended work yesterday because of bad weather. A looming storm and high tides put a temporary halt to operations to recover the remains of more than 100 people still missing more than a week after the huge ferry capsized. Over the weekend, strong wind and rain is expected in the Jindo area, a coast guard spokesman told journalists. As efforts to find the missing people are becoming protracted, there are growing concerns among their families that bodies might be lost for good, he said. The confirmed death toll stood yesterday at 187, with 115 unaccounted for many bodies are believed trapped in the ferry that capsized on April 16 with 476 people on board.
Making up the bulk of the passengers on the 6,825-tonne Sewol when it sank were 325 high-school students about 250 of whom are either confirmed or presumed dead. Although all hope of finding survivors has been extinguished, there is still anger and deep frustration among relatives of the missing about the pace of the recovery operation. Frogmen have battled strong currents, poor visibility and blockages caused by floating furniture as they have tried to get inside the upturned vessel, which rests on a silty seabed. They are coming across horrifying scenes in the murky water, including one dormitory room that would normally have held about 31 people packed with the bodies of 48 students wearing life jackets. About a quarter of the 187 bodies recovered so far have been found in waters outside the sunken vessel, and there are fears that some of the missing may have drifted free from the wreck.
A family member of a missing passenger of the sunken ferry Sewol waits for news from search-and-rescue teams in makeshift accommodations at a gymnasium in Jindo, South Korea, yesterday.
South Korean authorities wary of the palpable anger among relatives have mobilized eight trawlers and installed 13km nets anchored to the seabed across the Maenggol sea channel to prevent the dead being swept into the open ocean. Also, the South Korean government on Friday conceded that some bodies have been misidentified and announced changes to prevent such mistakes from happening again. There have been several reports in South Korean media this week of bodies going to the wrong families, with the error sometimes caught only after the remains were taken to a funeral home. An action plan released by the government-wide emergency task force acknowledged that there have been cases where the victims were wrongly transferred.
Remains will be transferred to families when there is a match using DNA testing or fingerprint or dental records, the task force said. The transfer will be temporary when a body is matched though identification or physical description, and South Korean authorities will wait for more authoritative evidence before making the transfer permanent. Furious families demanded a meeting with Korea Coast Guard Deputy Commissioner Choi Sang-hwan near the pier in Jindo Port, urging him to send the divers back into the water. We are waiting for the right moment, as conditions in the sea are not favorable, Choi said. Many relatives believe some of the victims may have survived for several days in trapped air pockets, but perished in the cold water after no rescue came. As a result, some have asked for autopsies to be performed, to see if it would be possible to determine the precise cause and time of death.
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A somber-looking Mr. Chung announced his resignation in a brief televised address Sunday morning, after bowing to a group of South Korean reporters. He said "keeping my post is too great a burden on the administration."
The 6,800-ton ferry Sewol was carrying hundreds of students and teachers on a field trip to the southwest island of Jeju when it capsized and sunk. The disaster shocked and then angered South Korea, with widespread criticism directed at the ship's crew for abandoning the vessel before an evacuation was fully under way.
In his resignation announcement, the prime minister said he wanted to quit earlier but that overseeing rescue and recovery efforts were the first priorities, and that he wanted to help before leaving office.
S. Korean PM Quits Over Ferry Sinking
One private, industry-connected entity recorded the weights. Another set the weight limit. Neither appears to have had any idea what the other was doing. And they are but two parts of a maritime system that failed passengers April 16 when the ferry sank, leaving more than 300 people missing or dead. The disaster has exposed enormous safety gaps in South Korea's monitoring of domestic passenger ships, which is in some ways less rigorous than its rules for ships that handle only cargo. Collectively, the country's regulators held more than enough information to conclude that the Sewol was routinely overloaded, but because they did not share that data and were not required to do so, it was practically useless.
The Korean Register of Shipping examined the Sewol early last year as it was being redesigned to handle more passengers. The register slashed the ship's cargo capacity by more than half, to 987 tons, and said the vessel needed to carry more than 2,000 tons of water to stay balanced. But the register gave its report only to the ship owner, Chonghaejin Marine Co. Ltd. Neither the coast guard nor the Korean Shipping Association, which regulates and oversees departures and arrivals of domestic passenger ships, appear to have had any knowledge of the new limit before the disaster. "That's a blind spot in the law," said Lee Kyu-Yeul, professor emeritus at Seoul National University's Department of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering.
South Korean coast guard officers try to rescue passengers from the Sewol ferry as it sinks in the water off the southern coast near Jindo, south of Seoul, South Korea. The doomed ferry Sewol exceeded its cargo limit on 246 trips - nearly every voyage it made in which it reported cargo - in the 13 months before it sank, according to documents that reveal the regulatory failures that allowed passengers by the hundreds to set off on an unsafe vessel. And it may have been more overloaded than ever on its final journey.
Chonghaejin reported much greater cargo capacity to the shipping association: 3,963 tons, according to a coast guard official in Incheon who had access to the documentation but declined to release it. Since the redesigned ferry began operating in March 2013, it made nearly 200 round trips - 394 individual voyages - from Incheon port near Seoul to the southern island of Jeju. On 246 of those voyages, the Sewol exceeded the 987-ton limit, according to documents from Incheon port.
The limit may have been exceeded even more frequently than that. In all but one of the other 148 trips, zero cargo was recorded. It is not mandatory for passenger ferries to report cargo to the port operator, which gathers the information to compile statistics and not for safety purposes. More than 2,000 tons of cargo was reported on 136 of the Sewol's trips, and it topped 3,000 tons 12 times. But the records indicate it never carried as much as it did on its final disastrous voyage: Moon Ki-han, a vice president at Union Transport Co, the company that loaded the ship, has said it was carrying an estimated 3,608 tons of cargo.
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Shouldn't have taken on passengers with an overloaded cargo hold...
SOUTH KOREA FERRY WAS ROUTINELY OVERLOADED
May 4,`14 -- The doomed ferry Sewol exceeded its cargo limit on 246 trips - nearly every voyage it made in which it reported cargo - in the 13 months before it sank, according to documents that reveal the regulatory failures that allowed passengers by the hundreds to set off on an unsafe vessel. And it may have been more overloaded than ever on its final journey.
One private, industry-connected entity recorded the weights. Another set the weight limit. Neither appears to have had any idea what the other was doing. And they are but two parts of a maritime system that failed passengers April 16 when the ferry sank, leaving more than 300 people missing or dead. The disaster has exposed enormous safety gaps in South Korea's monitoring of domestic passenger ships, which is in some ways less rigorous than its rules for ships that handle only cargo. Collectively, the country's regulators held more than enough information to conclude that the Sewol was routinely overloaded, but because they did not share that data and were not required to do so, it was practically useless.
The Korean Register of Shipping examined the Sewol early last year as it was being redesigned to handle more passengers. The register slashed the ship's cargo capacity by more than half, to 987 tons, and said the vessel needed to carry more than 2,000 tons of water to stay balanced. But the register gave its report only to the ship owner, Chonghaejin Marine Co. Ltd. Neither the coast guard nor the Korean Shipping Association, which regulates and oversees departures and arrivals of domestic passenger ships, appear to have had any knowledge of the new limit before the disaster. "That's a blind spot in the law," said Lee Kyu-Yeul, professor emeritus at Seoul National University's Department of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering.
South Korean coast guard officers try to rescue passengers from the Sewol ferry as it sinks in the water off the southern coast near Jindo, south of Seoul, South Korea. The doomed ferry Sewol exceeded its cargo limit on 246 trips - nearly every voyage it made in which it reported cargo - in the 13 months before it sank, according to documents that reveal the regulatory failures that allowed passengers by the hundreds to set off on an unsafe vessel. And it may have been more overloaded than ever on its final journey.
Chonghaejin reported much greater cargo capacity to the shipping association: 3,963 tons, according to a coast guard official in Incheon who had access to the documentation but declined to release it. Since the redesigned ferry began operating in March 2013, it made nearly 200 round trips - 394 individual voyages - from Incheon port near Seoul to the southern island of Jeju. On 246 of those voyages, the Sewol exceeded the 987-ton limit, according to documents from Incheon port.
The limit may have been exceeded even more frequently than that. In all but one of the other 148 trips, zero cargo was recorded. It is not mandatory for passenger ferries to report cargo to the port operator, which gathers the information to compile statistics and not for safety purposes. More than 2,000 tons of cargo was reported on 136 of the Sewol's trips, and it topped 3,000 tons 12 times. But the records indicate it never carried as much as it did on its final disastrous voyage: Moon Ki-han, a vice president at Union Transport Co, the company that loaded the ship, has said it was carrying an estimated 3,608 tons of cargo.
MORE
'Deeply Ashamed' Ferry Captain Among First to Abandon Ship
Good Morning America By JOOHEE CHO and DAN GOOD 4/17/2014
'Deeply Ashamed' Ferry Captain Among First to Abandon Ship
Captain 'Jumped Off Sinking Costa Concordia'
Francesco Schettino, who insists he fell into a lifeboat, is accused of abandoning the ship before all passengers were evacuated.
Captain 'Jumped Off Sinking Costa Concordia'
The ferry's captain who had gone on vacation was replaced by a substitute surnamed Lee, who the ship's operator Chonghaejin Marine claimed is a veteran with eight years of experience on the Incheon-Jeju Island route.
Six dead, 290 missing after South Korean ship sinks | World News # 40335
The Sewol Tragedy: 10 Things That Could Have Changed Everything
1. The missing captain
The real captain for the ferry Sewol was on vacation at the time and not on board. Thus, another captain took on the job. There is a good chance that if the original captain were on the ferry, nothing would have gone wrong. Of course, no one could have predicted the future.
6. The crew and a different captain
Another captain was filling in for the main captain of Sewol, who was on vacation. Nonetheless, the substitute turns out that he also has had a lot of experience as a captain. So how could something like this happen? Unfortunately, the captain was not at the helm when the ferry began to sink. Instead, it was a 25-year-old crew member with only one-year of experience who was steering. So what did this "captain" do? Apparently, not much. He was one of the very first to abandon the ship.
The Sewol Tragedy: 10 Things That Could Have Changed Everything | 9KOREA
Carnival cruise ship ends nightmare trip with engine room fire, passengers reveal horror stories
By Lukas I. Alpert AND Aliyah Shahid / November 11, 2010,
Carnival cruise ship ends nightmare trip with engine room fire, passengers reveal horror stories - NY Daily News
Some Bay Area Survivors Of Capsized Fishing Boat Return Home
July 8, 2011
NOVATO (KCBS) – Some of the Bay Area survivors of the ill-fated tourist fishing boat that sunk in the Sea of Cortez Sunday have returned home.
Some Bay Area Survivors Of Capsized Fishing Boat Return Home « CBS San Francisco
Captain Held After Cruise Ship Capsizes
15 January 2012
A major rescue operation was launched after the liner, which was carrying 4,234 people, began sinking near the island of Giglio,
Captain Held After Cruise Ship Capsizes
Costa Concordia Captain Allegedly 'Jumped Off' Sinking Ship, On Trial For Manslaughter
Agence France Presse | Posted: 11/11/2013
Costa Concordia Captain Allegedly 'Jumped Off' Sinking Ship, On Trial For Manslaughter
Chonghaejin Marine CEO Kim Han-sik was found guilty Thursday of negligence for allowing the Sewol ferry to be overloaded with improperly stored cargo. The 6,800-ton ferry, which officials say was top-heavy, capsized while making a routine turn, killing 304 people, mostly students on a school outing.
A man ties a yellow ribbon dedicated to victims onboard the sunken ferry Sewol, on a cable at Seoul City Hall Plaza, in Seoul.
The 71-year-old Kim denied the charges, saying the responsibility for the disaster lies with his boss, whose decomposed body was found in June. Investigators could not determine the cause of death of Chonghaejin Marine owner Yoo Byung-eun, who was the subject of a weeks-long manhunt. The court found Kim guilty of diverting $2.6 million over the past four years to Yoo. Several other employees were also found guilty of embezzlement.
The disaster, South Korea's worst in decades, prompted public outrage at the owners, as well as the government for lax safety standards and an unsuccessful rescue operation. Last week, the court in Gwangju sentenced the Sewol's captain and 15 other crew from five to 36 years in prison for abandoning the vessel.
Ferry Operator Gets 10 Years in Jail for Sewol Disaster
The Sewol was carrying 476 people when it went down off the southwest island of Jindo on April 16 last year. Of the 304 who died, 250 were pupils from the same high school. The tragedy shocked and enraged the country as it became clear that it was almost entirely man-made — the result of an illegal redesign, an overloaded cargo bay, an inexperienced crew and an unhealthy nexus between operators and state regulators.
Captain Lee Jun-seok and his crew were vilified, especially after video footage emerged showing them escaping the vessel while hundreds were trapped onboard. “Captain Lee made it impossible for passengers to leave the ship on their own by escaping from the ship first without issuing an evacuation order,” Chief Justice Yang Sung-tae said as he read out the ruling. “This is equivalent to pushing passengers into water and letting them drown,” Yang said.
In his first trial a year ago, Lee, now 70 years old, had been acquitted of homicide charges and convicted instead of gross negligence. That decision was overturned on appeal in April and replaced by the murder verdict and a life sentence — the ruling upheld by the apex court yesterday.
Captain murdered passengers: Supreme Court - Taipei Times
Preparation for the crucial exam starts from elementary school, and the relentless pressure to score well has been blamed for everything from early burnout to teenage depression and suicide. More than 630,000 students yesterday turned out for the exam and, as happens every year, the entire country went into hush-mode for the duration. The extraordinary measures taken to ensure nothing affects the student’s concentration include a 35-minute suspension of all aircraft takeoffs and landings at South Korean airports to coincide with the main language listening test.
The exam is a stressful rite of passage for any student — but for none more so this year then several dozen students from Danwon High School in Ansan, south of Seoul. In April last year, 325 of the school’s students were on an organized trip to the southern island of Jeju when the passenger ferry they were in sank. Only 75 of them survived.
Most of the surviving students were in the same grade and took part in yesterday’s exam — seen off at the test centers by their anxious parents. “After what happened, she became quite withdrawn and shunned people, as well as her studies,” Jang Dong-won, 46, said of his daughter. “But she somehow pulled herself out of it, and ended up hitting the books hard, staying late at school to study with her classmates.” The survivors were offered a dispensation to apply to colleges without taking the exam, but most declined, despite the difficulties they had getting back into the grueling study routine the test demands.
‘Sewol’ disaster survivors sit for college entrance exam - Taipei Times
