Recovery of bodies from Korean ferry suspended

SEOUL: The operation to recover bodies from the ferry that sank off South Korea last month has been suspended due to heavy seas, a spokesman said Saturday, amid concern that many of the missing may never be found.

Seventeen days after the 6,825-tonne Sewol capsized and sank, 228 people have been confirmed dead with 74 still unaccounted for.

"Divers were unable to dive late Friday and early today due to fast currents and high waves whipped up by gusty winds", Coastguard spokesman Ko Myung-Suk told journalists.

More than 100 divers were on standby, waiting for the waves to die down, he said. Dive teams have been working in challenging and sometimes hazardous conditions. They have to grope their way down guiding ropes to the sunken ship, laying on its side on the seabed at a depth of 40 meters (132 feet).They have to struggle through narrow passageways and rooms littered with floating debris in silty water.

Park Seung-Ki, spokesman for the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries, said bedding materials from the ship were found as far as 30 kilometers (around 20 miles) from the disaster site on Friday.

As days go by, personal belongings and debris from the ship have been spotted further and further away, fuelling concerns that strong currents may have swept some bodies into the open sea.

As a precaution, recovery workers put rings of netting around the site days ago.

The relatives of those still missing are insisting that all the bodies be recovered before efforts begin to raise the sunken ferry.

The Sewol capsized on April 16 with 476 people on board -- more than 300 of them from the same Danwon High School in Ansan city, just south of Seoul.

It is one of South Korea´s worst peacetime disasters but public anger and frustration has been amplified due to greed and irresponsibility being blamed for the poor handling of the catastrophe.

The captain and 14 of his crew have been arrested for being the first to leave the ship without helping all passengers to safety.

The Sewol´s regular captain, who was off duty on the day of the accident, has told prosecutors that the ferry operator -- Chonghaejin Marine Co -- "brushed aside" repeated warnings that the 20-year-old ship had stability issues following a renovation in 2012.Two Chonghaejin officials were arrested on Friday on charges of having the ferry overloaded well beyond its legal limit.

The ferry owners have also become the focus of an ever-widening probe.

The government has come under strong criticism over the initially slow rescue response as well as lax safety standards and collusion between industry and regulators, which were partly blamed for the scale of the disaster.

Divers search unopened rooms of South Korean ferry

Divers battled strong currents and wind on Saturday to search unopened rooms in a sunken South Korean ferry for dozens of missing passengers, officials said.

The divers will focus on opening up six rooms on the third and fourth floors while again combing places already searched, emergency task force spokesperson Ko Myung-seok. The task force said 58 out of 64 target areas have been searched.

“It took a while to develop routes, but after the routes were developed to some degree, opening up the rooms and getting inside worked out in a short period of time,” Mr. Ko said.

The emergency task force said in a news release that eight bodies were retrieved from the rooms in the third and the fourth floor on Saturday. So far bodies of 236 victims have been retrieved; 195 were found inside the ferry while 41 were found floating in the sea. The release said search will continue in the night.

The South Korean passenger liner Sewol was carrying 476 people, mostly from a single high school, when it sank on April 16. Only 174 people survived, including 22 of the 29 crew members.

S Korean president ‘sorry’ for ferry disaster

SEOUL: South Korean President Park Geun-Hye apologised Tuesday for her government´s failure to combat systemic and regulatory "evils" blamed for the loss of about 300 lives in a ferry disaster.

Two days after her prime minister resigned over the tragedy, Park´s comments are another attempt to defuse growing public anger about the April 16 sinking of the 6,825-tonne Sewol.

"I don´t know how to apologise for the failure to prevent this accident, and for the insufficient first response," Park said in a statement to her cabinet that was broadcast on national television.

"I am sorry to the people and heavy-hearted that many precious lives were lost."

Park´s government has been widely criticised over perceived corruption and lax safety standards that may have led to the disaster, with claims that the ferry was overloaded and that the passenger list was inaccurate and incomplete.

Echoing words used by Prime Minister Chung Hong-Won when he fell on his sword on Sunday, Park blamed systemic and regulatory failings for one of South Korea´s worst ever maritime tragedies.

"I feel so regretful for having been unable to correct such long-running evils and letting an accident like this take place," she said.

Park accepted Chung´s resignation but ordered him to remain in office until the recovery operation was completed.

Earlier Tuesday, the president had travelled to Ansan, just south of Seoul, where she paid her respects at a memorial for the schoolchildren who died in the disaster.

Of the 476 people on board the Sewol, 325 were students from the same high school in Ansan. Only 75 of them were rescued.

But in a sign of the boiling anger felt by relatives of the missing and the dead, there were shouted demands for her floral tribute to be removed from the shrine, and reports the president had been jostled.

The confirmed death toll from the accident, which took place several hundred kilometres (miles) south of Ansan, stood at 193, with 109 people still missing.

Search mission spokesman Koh Myung-Seok said divers had worked their way through passenger cabins on the fourth and fifth levels of the submerged ferry on Tuesday, recovering four more bodies.

 

South Korean PM offers to resign over ferry sinking

 

AP South Korean Prime Minister Chung Hong-won bows to the nation after offering his resignation at the Central Government Complex in Seoul.

South Korea’s Prime Minister offered to resign on Sunday over the government’s handling of a deadly ferry sinking, blaming “deep-rooted evils” and societal irregularities for a tragedy that has left more than 300 people dead or missing and led to widespread shame, fury and finger-pointing.

The resignation offer comes amid rising indignation over claims by the victims’ relatives that the government didn’t do enough to rescue or to protect their loved ones. Most of the missing and dead were high school students on a school trip. Officials have taken into custody all 15 people involved in navigating the ferry that sank April 16, a prosecutor said.

South Korean executive power is largely concentrated in the President, Park Geun-hye, so the resignation offer by Prime Minister Chung Hong-won appears to be largely symbolic. There was no immediate word from Ms. Park about whether she would accept Mr. Chung’s resignation.

Mr. Chung was heckled by relatives and his car was blocked when he visited a shelter on an island near the site of the sinking a week ago. On Sunday, he issued an extraordinary statement to reporters in Seoul on the national tragedy.

“As I saw grieving families suffering with the pain of losing their loved ones and the sadness and resentment of the public, I thought I should take all responsibility as Prime Minister,” Mr. Chung said. “There have been so many varieties of irregularities that have continued in every corner of our society and practices that have gone wrong. I hope these deep-rooted evils get corrected this time and this kind of accident never happens again.”

Meanwhile, Yang Jung-jin of the joint investigation team said two helmsmen and two members of the steering crew were taken in on preliminary arrest warrants issued on Friday. Formal arrest warrants were issued on Saturday night. Eleven other crew members, including the captain, had been formally arrested earlier.

Divers have recovered 187 bodies and 115 people are believed to be missing, though the government-wide emergency task force has said the ship’s passengers list could be inaccurate. Only 174 people survived, including 22 of the 29 crew members.

The seven surviving crew members who have not been arrested or detained held non-marine jobs such as chef or steward, Mr. Yang said in a telephone interview from Mokpo, the southern city near the wreck site where prosecutors are based.

South Korean television aired video of police escorting the four men to court. All four wore baseball caps that hid their faces, and at least one was limping.

Capt. Lee Joon-seok told reporters after his arrest that he withheld the evacuation order because rescuers had yet to arrive and he feared for passengers’ safety in the cold water. Crew members have also defended their actions.

Officials in charge of the search effort said divers had reached two large rooms where many of the lost may lie dead, but the search has been suspended since Saturday because of bad weather. Currents were also strong, as they were in the first several days of the search, when divers struggled in vain even to get inside the submerged vessel.

Large objects that toppled when the ferry tipped over and sank are believed to be keeping divers from reaching bodies in at least one of the rooms.

The Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries also said it would soon change ferry systems so that passenger, vehicle and cargo information is processed electronically. There is not only uncertainty about how many people were on the Sewol, but a huge discrepancy regarding the amount of cargo it was carrying when it sank.

The Sewol was carrying an estimated 3,608 tons of cargo, according to an executive of the company that loaded it. That far exceeds what the captain claimed in paperwork 150 cars and 657 tons of other cargo, according to the coast guard and is more than three times what an inspector who examined the vessel during a redesign last year said it could safely carry.

Mr. Yang, the prosecutor, said that the cause of the sinking could be due to excessive veering, improper stowage of cargo, modifications made to the ship and tidal influence. He said investigators would determine the cause by consulting with experts and using simulations.

South Korean PM resigns over ferry disaster

SEOUL: South Korea´s prime minister resigned Sunday, blaming corruption and "deep-rooted evil" for the sinking of a passenger ferry that left 300 people dead or missing, as anger grows over the bungled response to the tragedy.

Chung Hong-Won admitted he had not been up to the task of overseeing rescue operations after the Sewol capsized with 476 people -- many of them schoolchildren -- on board.

"I offer my apology for having been unable to prevent this accident from happening and unable to properly respond to it afterwards," he said. "I believed I, as the prime minister, certainly had to take responsibility and resign.

"Parents and relatives of the missing and the dead have blasted the response to the sinking, saying the rescue was too slow to swing into action and this may have cost lives. There has also been rage over perceived corruption and lax safety standards that may have led to the disaster, with claims that the ferry was overloaded and the passenger list was inaccurate and incomplete.

"Looking at the latest accident I came to a painful realisation that there is too much deep-rooted evil and corruption in our society," Chung said. "I hope that such wrongdoings will be rooted out this time so that an accident like this will never happen again.

"The role of prime minister is largely ceremonial in South Korea, with the presidency holding the lion´s share of executive power.

In Jindo, the nearest island to the wreck, relatives of the dead and missing were unimpressed. "So what?" snapped Ji Hyung-Soo. "My son is there in the sea. His resignation will never ease my bitterness and sadness. "Anybody responsible for this disaster must be punished severely, but the most urgent thing to do now is to recover the bodies as soon as possible. I´m not interested in anything else.

"Prosecutors looking to mete out the justice that relatives want raided the offices of state sea traffic controllers in Jeju island on Sunday, the intended destination of the Sewol, and in Jindo. They seized records of radio communication with the Sewol and surveillance video footage, Yonhap said. A transcript of communication released earlier revealed panic and indecision among crew and sea traffic controllers in the crucial final moments, with neither able to make the call to evacuate passengers.

The confirmed death toll from the tragedy remained Sunday at 187. A total of 115 people are still unaccounted for, with many bodies believed trapped in the sunken vessel. Divers were battling decompression sickness and atrocious weather in their grim search for corpses. Further complicating their efforts was the increasing depth of the wreck as it slips slowly into the silt of the seabed, making an already dangerous diving operation even more hazardous.

Despite waves up to three metres (nine feet) and near gale-force winds, teams were still trying to search the ferry. A coastguard spokesman said 98 frogmen were trying to get into rooms on the fourth deck of the 6,825-tonne Sewol, but he warned the operation was hard. "As the ship has sunk further... the diving depth has also increased to more than 40 metres (130 feet), posing even more difficulties for search efforts.

"A growing number of divers are reporting decompression sickness," he said. Pressure rises as divers go deeper, increasing the amount of air they breathe from their tanks. This not only reduces dive time, but also heightens levels of nitrogen in their bloodstream, raising the risk of potentially harmful bubbles forming in body tissue.

Strong underwater currents, poor visibility and waterlogged debris were making conditions inside the ferry treacherous, coastguard chief Kim Seok-Kyun said on Sunday. "Hallways and cabins are packed with carpets and blankets swollen by water as well as furniture, blocking entry by divers and making search efforts even more difficult," he said.

Yonhap news agency, citing one rescue worker, said divers were having to blindly stick their hands into clumps of floating objects to fumble for bodies.

On the surface recriminations continue, with four more of the ship´s crew arrested on Saturday. Their arrest means all 15 surviving crew members responsible for sailing the vessel are in custody, facing charges ranging from criminal negligence to abandoning passengers.

Prosecutors have also raided a host of businesses affiliated with the ferry operator, the Chonghaejin Marine Company, as part of an overall probe into corrupt management. The widening investigation has seen travel bans imposed on eight current and former executives of the Korea Register of Shipping -- the body responsible for issuing marine safety certificates.

South Korean PM resigns over ferry disaster

SEOUL: South Korea´s prime minister resigned Sunday, blaming corruption and "deep-rooted evil" for the sinking of a passenger ferry that left 300 people dead or missing, as anger grows over the bungled response to the tragedy.

Chung Hong-Won admitted he had not been up to the task of overseeing rescue operations after the Sewol capsized with 476 people -- many of them schoolchildren -- on board.

"I offer my apology for having been unable to prevent this accident from happening and unable to properly respond to it afterwards," he said. "I believed I, as the prime minister, certainly had to take responsibility and resign.

"Parents and relatives of the missing and the dead have blasted the response to the sinking, saying the rescue was too slow to swing into action and this may have cost lives. There has also been rage over perceived corruption and lax safety standards that may have led to the disaster, with claims that the ferry was overloaded and the passenger list was inaccurate and incomplete.

"Looking at the latest accident I came to a painful realisation that there is too much deep-rooted evil and corruption in our society," Chung said. "I hope that such wrongdoings will be rooted out this time so that an accident like this will never happen again.

"The role of prime minister is largely ceremonial in South Korea, with the presidency holding the lion´s share of executive power.

In Jindo, the nearest island to the wreck, relatives of the dead and missing were unimpressed. "So what?" snapped Ji Hyung-Soo. "My son is there in the sea. His resignation will never ease my bitterness and sadness. "Anybody responsible for this disaster must be punished severely, but the most urgent thing to do now is to recover the bodies as soon as possible. I´m not interested in anything else.

"Prosecutors looking to mete out the justice that relatives want raided the offices of state sea traffic controllers in Jeju island on Sunday, the intended destination of the Sewol, and in Jindo. They seized records of radio communication with the Sewol and surveillance video footage, Yonhap said. A transcript of communication released earlier revealed panic and indecision among crew and sea traffic controllers in the crucial final moments, with neither able to make the call to evacuate passengers.

The confirmed death toll from the tragedy remained Sunday at 187. A total of 115 people are still unaccounted for, with many bodies believed trapped in the sunken vessel. Divers were battling decompression sickness and atrocious weather in their grim search for corpses. Further complicating their efforts was the increasing depth of the wreck as it slips slowly into the silt of the seabed, making an already dangerous diving operation even more hazardous.

Despite waves up to three metres (nine feet) and near gale-force winds, teams were still trying to search the ferry. A coastguard spokesman said 98 frogmen were trying to get into rooms on the fourth deck of the 6,825-tonne Sewol, but he warned the operation was hard. "As the ship has sunk further... the diving depth has also increased to more than 40 metres (130 feet), posing even more difficulties for search efforts.

"A growing number of divers are reporting decompression sickness," he said. Pressure rises as divers go deeper, increasing the amount of air they breathe from their tanks. This not only reduces dive time, but also heightens levels of nitrogen in their bloodstream, raising the risk of potentially harmful bubbles forming in body tissue.

Strong underwater currents, poor visibility and waterlogged debris were making conditions inside the ferry treacherous, coastguard chief Kim Seok-Kyun said on Sunday. "Hallways and cabins are packed with carpets and blankets swollen by water as well as furniture, blocking entry by divers and making search efforts even more difficult," he said.

Yonhap news agency, citing one rescue worker, said divers were having to blindly stick their hands into clumps of floating objects to fumble for bodies.

On the surface recriminations continue, with four more of the ship´s crew arrested on Saturday. Their arrest means all 15 surviving crew members responsible for sailing the vessel are in custody, facing charges ranging from criminal negligence to abandoning passengers.

Prosecutors have also raided a host of businesses affiliated with the ferry operator, the Chonghaejin Marine Company, as part of an overall probe into corrupt management. The widening investigation has seen travel bans imposed on eight current and former executives of the Korea Register of Shipping -- the body responsible for issuing marine safety certificates.

Race to recover bodies from Korea ferry as storms loom

SEOUL: Dive teams raced Friday to pull more than 100 bodies from a sunken South Korean ferry as storm clouds loomed and the victims´ families angrily pressed officials to wrap up the recovery effort.

The confirmed death toll stood at 183, but 119 people remained unaccounted for -- their bodies believed still trapped in the submerged vessel that capsized on April 16 with 476 people on board.

Although all hope of finding survivors has been extinguished, there is still anger and deep frustration among the relatives over the pace of the recovery operation off the southern island of Jindo.

Gentle tides and good weather have helped the dive teams in recent days, but the search conditions inside the ferry are still challenging and rescuers are only managing to retrieve around 30 bodies a day.

Making up the bulk of the passengers on the 6,825 tonne Sewol when it sank were 325 high school students -- around 250 of whom are either confirmed or presumed dead.

On Thursday evening, a group of irate parents stormed into the Jindo office of the deputy head of the South Korean coastguard and roughly manhandled him down to the island harbour.

He was kept there most of the night, sitting on the ground, along with coastguard chief Kim Seok-Kyun and Marine Minister Lee Ju-Young, while the relatives accused them of lying about the recovery operation and demanded they bring in more resources.

Police made no move to intervene and the three made no attempt to get away, reflecting a reluctance to antagonise the relatives in any way at a time of widespread public anger over the official response to the disaster.

The bereaved families have said they want all the remaining bodies removed from the ferry before the weekend -- a demand that is unlikely to be met, especially with a bad weather front moving in.

"We know that weather conditions will worsen considerably and currents will become stronger from Saturday," a coastguard spokesman told a press briefing.

An earlier coastguard statement said storm warnings could be issued on Saturday or Sunday for the area around the rescue site.

Rescuers have not found a single survivor since 174 people were pulled to safety on the day of the accident.

It took divers working in difficult and dangerous conditions more than two days to get into the sunken ferry and two more days to retrieve the first bodies.

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.

The Sewol´s captain, Lee Joon-Seok, and 10 crew members have been arrested on charges ranging from criminal negligence to abandoning passengers.

The captain has been particularly criticised for delaying the evacuation order until the ferry was listing so sharply that escape was almost impossible.

Prosecutors have raided a host of businesses affiliated with the ferry operator, the Chonghaejin Marine Company, as part of an overall probe into corrupt management.

Body found of boy who made first call from Korea ferry: report

SEOUL: The body of a high school student who made the first distress call from a sinking South Korean ferry was recovered from the submerged vessel on Thursday, news reports said.

The student, identified by his surname Choi, had called the emergency 119 number at 8:52am on Wednesday last week, three minutes before the crew of the 6,825 tonne Sewol sent their first distress signal.

The timing of his terrified message -- "Save us. The ship is sinking" -- has fuelled anger over the slow response of the Sewol´s captain and crew as the disaster unfolded.

The confirmed death toll stood at 162 on Thursday, with 140 still unaccounted for -- their bodies believed trapped in the ship that capsized in circumstances that have yet to be fully explained.

Yonhap news agency said divers had retrieved the boy´s body from inside the ferry on Thursday morning and it had been identified by his parents.

A DNA test was being carried out to formally confirm his identity, Yonhap said.

The boy was one of 325 students from the same high school who were on the ferry, bound for the southern resort island of Jeju, when it capsized.

During his 119 call, Choi was bombarded with questions about the ferry´s coordinates and the number of people on board.

A coastguard official later told reporters that emergency services had mistaken him for a crew member.

The captain and 11 crew members have either been arrested or taken into police custody awaiting charges.

Heartbreaking texts from students on sinking S Korea ferry

SEOUL: Heart-wrenching messages of fear, love and despair, sent by high school students from a sinking South Korean ferry added extra emotional weight Thursday to a tragedy that has stunned the entire nation.

Nearly 300 people -- most of them students on a high school trip to a holiday island -- are still missing after the ferry capsized and sank on Wednesday morning.

"Sending this in case I may not be able to say this again. Mom, I love you," one student Shin Young-Jin said in a text to his mother that was widely circulated in the South Korean media.

"Oh, I love you too son," texted back his mother who was unaware at the time that her son was caught in a life and death struggle to escape the rapidly sinking vessel.

Unlike many others, the exchange had a happy ending as Shin was one of only 179 survivors rescued before the ferry capsized and went under the water.Others were not so fortunate.

Another student, 16-year-old Kim Woong-Ki sent a desperate text for help to his elder brother as the ship listed violently over to one side.

"My room is tilting about 45 degrees. My mobile is not working very well," Kim messaged.

Seeking to reassure him, his brother said he was sure help was on the way.

"So don´t panic and just do whatever you´re told to do. Then you´ll be fine," he messaged back.

There was no further communication and Kim was listed among the 287 people on board still unaccounted for.

Sadly his brother´s advice was similar to that of the crew who controversially ordered passengers to stay put when the ship first foundered.

Angry relatives said this resulted in the passengers getting trapped when the ferry keeled over, cutting off routes of escape.

That grim scenario was encapsulated in the texts of an 18-year-old student, identified in the local media by her surname Shin.

"Dad, don´t worry. I´m wearing a life vest and am with other girls. We´re inside the ship, still in the hallway," the girl messaged to her father.

Her distraught father texted her to try and get out, but it was already too late.

"Dad, I can´t. The ship is too tilted. The hallway is crowded with so many people," she responded in a final message.

Some parents managed a last, traumatic phone call with their children as they tried to escape.

"She told me the ship was tilted over and she couldn´t see anything," one mother recalled of a panicked conversation with her student daughter.

"She said ´I haven´t put on the life jacket yet´, and then the phone went dead," the mother told the Dong-A Ilbo newspaper

2 dead as South Korea ferry with 476 passengers sinks

AP/Yonhap Helicopters try to rescue passengers from a sinking ferry off the southern coast in South Korea on Wednesday.

Dozens of military boats and helicopters scrambled on Wednesday to rescue more than 470 people, including 325 high school students on a school trip, after a ferry sank off South Korea’s southern coast, killing at least two and injuring 14, officials said.

The ferry with 476 people was sailing to the southern island of Jeju when it sent a distress call on Wednesday morning after it began leaning to one side, according to Ministry of Security and Public Administration. The government said about 95 per cent of the ship was submerged.

Two Coastguard officers said that a 27-year-old woman named Park Ji-yeong and another unidentified person had died. One of the officers said 180 passengers had been rescued so far, but gave no further details, including what caused the ship to sink or the conditions of the other passengers.

A student, Lim Hyung-min, told broadcaster YTN from a gym on a nearby island that he jumped into the ocean wearing a life jacket with other students and then swam to a nearby rescue boat.

“As the ship was shaking and tilting, we all tripped and bumped into each another,” Mr. Lim said, adding that some people were bleeding. Once he jumped, the ocean “was so cold. ... I was hurrying, thinking that I wanted to live.”

Local media ran photos showing the partially submerged ship tilting dramatically as helicopters flew overhead and rescue vessels and a small boat covered with an orange tarp over it floated nearby.

The students are from a high school in Ansan city near Seoul and they were on their way to the Jeju island for a four-day trip, according to a relief team set up by Gyeonggi Province, which governs the city. The ship left Incheon port, just west of Seoul, on Tuesday evening, according to Busan Regional Maritime Affairs & Port Administration.

At the high school, students were sent home and parents gathered for news about the ferry.

A total of 16 helicopters, 34 rescue vessels and Navy divers were sent to the area, Lee Gyeong-Og, a vice minister for South Korea’s Public Administration and Security Ministry, told a televised news conference. He said President Park Geun-hye ordered a thorough rescue operation to prevent deaths. He said 14 had been injured so far, including one described as serious, and taken to hospitals.

Mr. Lee said that Navy special forces and an underwater demolition team would help rescue passengers who’d jumped into the water as the ship sank.

Two dead, 368 rescued from capsized S. Korea ferry: official

SEOUL: Two bodies have been recovered and 368 people rescued from a South Korean ferry that capsized at sea Wednesday with 477 passengers and crew on board, a senior government official said.

"So far, 368 have been rescued," Lee Gyeong-Og, the vice minister of security and public administration, told a press briefing in Seoul

He also confirmed that two people had been killed, including one female crew member.