Hope Diminishes for About 300 Missing on Sunken Korean Ferry [Time]

[Do Do]

Per Liljas April 15, 2014

Divers are being hampered in their efforts to comb the submerged wreck, but reports of text messages from trapped passengers give slim hope that some are still alive. So far, there are nine confirmed deaths in the sinking of the ferry, which was bound for the resort island of Jeju


Rescue helicopters flying over the passenger ship Sewol as it sinks in waters off South Korea's southwestern coast on April 16, 2014 (Yonhap—EPA)

Updated: April 17, 2014, 12:00 a.m. E.T.

Divers continue to search the sunken Sewol ferry off the South Korean coast, but strong currents and poor visibility are hampering rescue efforts, and hopes of finding any of the 288 still unaccounted-for passengers alive are rapidly diminishing.

The ship, heading from Incheon to the resort island of Jeju, transmitted a distress signal at 9 a.m. local time on Wednesday and sank into freezing waters within two hours. A massive rescue operation saved 179 of the 475 passengers, the majority of them students and teachers going on a four-day school trip. There are nine confirmed fatalities.

On Thursday, heartbreaking text messages between anxious parents and students trapped in the sinking ferry emerged in local media.

ABC News reported that texts between a still missing 18-year-old student and her father were broadcast on the South Korean news station MBC News.

“Dad, don’t worry. I’ve got a life vest on, and we’re huddled together,” wrote the student, identified only by her last name, Shin.

The father replied, “I know the rescue is under way, but make your way out if you can.”

“Dad, I can’t walk out,” she replied. “The corridor is full of kids, and it’s too tilted.”

There have been nine confirmed fatalities so far, all of them under 30 years old.

Currently, 169 vessels and 29 aircraft are involved in the search effort. Two salvage cranes are expected to arrive at the scene on Friday morning to raise the submerged ship.

The cause of the incident is still unknown, but survivors spoke of a loud crash, leading to speculation that the ferry collided with a rock.

Passenger Koo Bon-hee, 36, told Associated Press that many people had tried, but been unable to break the windows to get out.

“The rescue wasn’t done well. We were wearing life jackets. We had time,” he said. “If people had jumped into the water … they would have been rescued. But we were told not to go out.”

Coast-guard officials have said the ferry deviated from a government-recommended route, and they are currently questioning the captain, who was reportedly among the first to leave the ship.

The government has received a significant amount of flak for its handling of the disaster, with announcements on how many people were on board and how many had been saved being revised on a number of occasions. It was initially stated that only about 100 people were missing.

http://ti.me/1h1KCbn

[Do Do]

Emily Rauhala @emilyrauhala 3:53 AM ET

The sinking of the Sewol is being called one of South Korea's worst peacetime disasters as survivors question why an evacuation order wasn't immediately issued by the captain. Nine people are confirmed dead and rescuers are looking for nearly 300 missing passengers


Family members of missing ferry passengers weep as they wait for news near the site where the Sewol sank. Almost 300 passengers are still missing
Chung Sung-Jun—Getty Images

Updated on Thursday, 6:06 a.m. ET

The ferry that sank off South Korea’s south coast on Wednesday was named Sewol, or “time and tide.” Rescue workers on Thursday fought both as they raced to save hundreds believed to be still trapped inside the vessel. Boats and helicopters searched the sea, while divers worked to free people from inside the submerged hulk. According to the latest figures, nine are dead, 288 missing and 179 rescued. Given the freezing water temperature and the state of the ship, the death toll is expected to rise.

Sewol was making its twice-weekly journey from the port city of Incheon to the resort island of Jeju when it sent a distress signal at 8:58 a.m., Wednesday, local time. There were more than 400 aboard the ship, including 340 teenagers and teachers from a high school near the capital, Seoul, setting off on a four-day field trip. Several survivors told local press they heard a loud noise before the ship started tilting. An announcement urged passengers to stay put. For some, it was an impossible choice: do as asked, or disobey and leap into the frigid water.

The incident is already being called one of the country’s worst peacetime disasters, and may be the worst South Korean ferry disaster since 1993, when 292 people were killed. It is still unclear what caused the ship to sink, and so quickly. Early speculation focused on the possibility that Sewol hit a rock, although one rescuer, citing surviving members of Sewol’s crew, told Reuters the area was free of major obstacles.

Another theory is that cargo on board somehow shifted, causing the vessel to list and eventually sink. South Korean officials said the captain and crew are being questioned, but have not offered a theory of what happened. With most of the ship underwater, piecing together what happened will take time.

The rescue effort and its aftermath will no doubt challenge the government of President Park Geun-hye. “We must not give up,” Park declared on Wednesday. Speaking at the Ministry of Security and Public Administration, she said “We must do our best to rescue even one of those passengers and students who may not have escaped from the ship.” But those affected have been critical of the operation, claiming the government should be doing more, and doing it faster, to save those trapped inside. When Premier Jung Hong-won visited families waiting for news, someone threw a water bottle at him, Yonhap News Agency reported.

Survivors and families are also furious about the decision to keep passengers on board as the vessel listed. CNN reports that there were 46 lifeboats on the sunken ferry Sewol, but only one was deployed.

Survivor Koo Bon-hee, 36, criticized the crew for telling them to stay seated. “We were wearing life jackets. We had time,” he told the Associated Press. On April 17, the AP reported an immediate evacuation order wasn’t issued—instead about 30 minutes after the captain requested passengers to put on life jackets—because the ship’s officers were trying to stabilize it. “If people had jumped into the water … they would have been rescued. But we were told not to go out.”

South Korean students are accustomed to strict discipline, which may have made them more likely to follow the crew’s order. “We were asking ourselves, ‘Shouldn’t we move? Shouldn’t we try and get out?’” survivor Huh Young-ki told AFP. “But the announcement was saying help would be there in 10 minutes.”

For too many, help did not come.

— With reporting by Per Liljas / Hong Kong

[Do Do]

By KJ Kwon and Catherine E. Shoichet, CNN
April 17, 2014 -- Updated 1145 GMT (1945 HKT)

Jindo, South Korea (CNN) -- A passenger describes women screaming in the darkness. A father learns his child is trapped. A son, fearing death, tells his mother he loves her.

Investigators haven't said what caused a South Korean ferry boat carrying hundreds of passengers to capsize on Wednesday. But as rescuers searched frigid waters for nearly 300 missing people, text messages surfaced describing the harrowing moments after the ferry started to roll.

CNN affiliate YTN reported on several messages, purportedly from passengers aboard the sinking vessel to their loved ones. CNN could not independently confirm the authenticity of the messages or when they were sent. It's also unclear what happened to the people who sent them.

The messages, widely reported in South Korean media, paint a chaotic picture of the situation aboard the ferry as hundreds of passengers waited for help and some reached out to loved ones.

'We are not dead yet'

"No phone connection so there is no Internet connection. So just sending text message. There are few people on the ship, can't see a thing, it's totally dark. So there are few men and women, women are screaming," says one purported text message from a passenger obtained by CNN.

"There are a few people in the ship," the student writes to his mother, "and we are not dead yet, so please send along this message."

A son reaches out

"Mom, in case I won't get to tell you, I'm sending this. I love you," another message says, according to CNN affiliate YTN.

The mom, apparently unaware of what was happening, responds, "Why?"

Then, "I, too, love you, son."

A father offers his child advice

In another exchange described by YTN, a father advises his teenager to go outside to reach rescuers.

"No -- I can't move because it is tilted too much. Moving is more dangerous," the teen replies.

Later, the teen writes, "No, Dad, I can't walk now. There are no kids in the hallway. And it is too tilted."

'The ship got hit by something'

"I was on my way to Jeju Island," a passenger writes in a message to his brother, according to YTN.

"The ship got hit by something and is not moving and the coast guards are on the way."

CNN's KJ Kwon reported from Jindo, South Korea. CNN's Catherine E. Shoichet reported from Atlanta. Hyoun Joo Song and CNN's Jane Lee and Amara Walker contributed to this report.

[Do Do]

Steve Herman
April 18, 2014

Family member of missing passengers who were on the South Korean ferry "Sewol" which sank in the sea off Jindo cry at a port where family members of missing passengers gathered in Jindo, April 18, 2014.

BANGKOK — The unfolding situation in South Korea, where a modern passenger ferry close to shore quickly sank with most of its passengers still onboard, is raising concern about the safety of such vessels and whether the crew responded properly. International maritime accident specialists are expressing confidence that an investigation will determine the tragedy’s cause. Coast guard officials say as of midday Friday, 28 people were confirmed dead, although the death toll is expected to rise sharply. Rescuers have fought strong currents and murky waters in their search for 268 people still missing, while 179 passengers have been rescued.

It is not only bereaved families questioning how so many could be stranded onboard a ship that capsized and sank in relatively shallow water close to a coastal island.

South Korea’s coast guard is still focused on retrieving the bodies of those inside the vessel and those being found floating in the sea. Preliminary information from investigators reveals the five-story tall ferry, on a voyage from Incheon to the resort island of Jeju, made a sudden, sharp turn, some minutes before the first distress call Wednesday morning.

Former ferry boat captain Kit Filor in Australia cautioned against jumping to any conclusions prior to a full investigation of the sinking of the ferry named Sewol.

“The sudden turn may be because somebody on the bridge ordered the course altered suddenly. Or it may have been from an external source, such as a loss of watertight integrity may have caused in itself the un-stability of the ship. What we really need: a thorough investigation, an objective investigation which I know that the Korean authorities will conduct. They are very expert in these sorts of areas,” said Filor.

Filor said ferries like the Sewol that can carry vehicles and so are called roll-on, roll off ferries, or ROROs, have been involved in numerous high-profile accidents with significant loss of life. But Filor, who has taught courses in numerous countries on conducting maritime accident investigations, said the ships themselves are not inherently dangerous.

“Most of the accidents that occur to RORO’s, I think, really occur because of an external force, such as a fire, a collision, a door being left open. Normally, though, if they are operated in reasonable sea conditions and within the regulations that govern them they are a safe form of transport,” said Filor.

The diesel-powered Sewol, built in Japan in 1994, was capable of carrying nearly 1,000 people and dozens of cars and trucks. It sank within two hours of sending its initial distress signal.

More than 300 of the 475 people on board were teenaged students on a school trip. Officials say the third mate was apparently at the wheel when the accident happened. The captain is in police custody.

There are reports from survivors that the captain and most of the crew abandoned ship without even telling passengers to flee for their lives. Those who were on the topmost and lowest decks apparently had the best opportunities to escape. Some of those rescued say an announcement was repeatedly broadcast on the ship telling passengers to stay put, even an hour after the first distress call and less than 90 minutes before the 14-meter high vessel completely capsized.

The incident is likely to become South Korea’s worst maritime disaster in decades.

[Do Do]

By Jethro Mullen, Kyung Lah and K.J. Kwon, CNN
April 22, 2014 -- Updated 1152 GMT (1952 HKT)

Jindo, South Korea (CNN) -- Crew members from the sunken South Korean ferry Sewol said Tuesday they were unable to reach the lifeboats as the ship was tilting over.

Four crew members who were arrested Monday over their role in the disaster that has claimed more than 100 lives appeared outside a courthouse Tuesday. Two more crew members were arrested Tuesday, bringing to nine the total number facing charges -- including the ferry's captain.

The four who appeared Tuesday had their heads bowed and faces covered, making it unclear which of them was speaking.

Asked by a journalist if anybody got to the lifeboats as the ferry was listing badly, one of the crew members said they "made attempts do so, but it was hard to go there."

All the crew members "made attempts to do that," he said. "But we slipped so we could not do that."

The failure to deploy the lifeboats is one of a series of problems that beset those on board the sinking vessel last Wednesday. So far, 108 people have been confirmed dead and 194 remain missing.

A transcript of a radio conversation released by authorities over the weekend suggested that passengers on the ship couldn't reach lifeboats to escape because the ship tilted so quickly that it left many of them unable to move.

But the ship's captain and some crew members have come under heavy criticism, notably for the captain's decision to tell passengers to stay where they were.

Search for survivors goes on

At the scene of the disaster, inflatable powerboats zipped across the sea off the country's southwestern coast Tuesday, ferrying divers to the area where the ferry sank.

Two huge buoys bobbing on the surface mark the spot underneath which the ship lies. Dozens of vessels, ranging from dinghies to warships, surround the site.

Divers plop into the cold, opaque water, picking up guide ropes that lead them into the submerged ferry where they can see barely a foot in front of them.

"Divers can't even see their hands," said Koh Myung-seok, a spokesman for the joint task force leading the search.

Authorities say the efforts are still a search and rescue operation, but no survivors have been found since 174 people were rescued soon after the ferry went down Wednesday. The death toll keeps ticking grimly upward as divers bring more bodies to the surface.

'It's a mess'

On the shore, family members of missing passengers wait anxiously, many of them parents of high school students who were taking the ferry on a field trip. Some relatives are called into white domed tents to identify the remains of their loved ones.

The divers' efforts are focusing on the third and fourth floors of the ferry, but gaining entry to a cafeteria where a lot of passengers may have congregated is proving difficult.

"There are a lot of objects, including furniture. It's a mess there," Koh said Monday evening.

Because the ferry sank during the morning, Koh said authorities think a lot of people may have been in the cafeteria at the time.

Divers have been trying to breach a wall between the lounge area and the cafeteria, Park Seung-gee, an official at the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries, said Tuesday.

"The conditions are so bad, my heart aches. We're going in thinking there may be survivors. When we have to come back with nothing, we can't even face the families," said Bard Yoon, one of the divers.

Koh said that most of the bodies recovered were wearing life vests.

Captain and crew criticized

As the search continues beneath the waves, investigators are still trying to establish what happened to the ship to make it list to one side before tipping into the ocean.

Initial criticism has focused on the captain and some crew members. South Korean President Park Geun-hye said Monday that there actions were "akin to murder."

The captain, Lee Joon-seok, has defended his decision to tell passengers to stay put as the ferry began sinking, saying he was concerned about the sea's strong currents and cold water as well as the lack of rescue ships.

The captain and eight crew members who made it off the ship alive have been arrested and are facing criminal charges.

Authorities had arrested two first helmsmen, one second helmsman, a third mate, the chief engineer and a technician, as of Monday, according to prosecutors. Authorities did not release details about the jobs of the two arrested Tuesday or what charges they face.

Questions have been raised about why the third mate was steering the ship when it ran into trouble on its way to a popular vacation island. The captain was in his cabin at the time.

Chonghaejin Marine, which operated the ferry, has posted an apology on its website.

"We pray for the Sewol victims who lost their precious lives due to the accident," it said. "We prostrate ourselves before the victims' families and beg for forgiveness."

CNN's Kyung Lah and K.J. Kwon reported from Jindo; CNN's Jethro Mullen reported and wrote from Hong Kong. CNN's Khushbu Shah, Steven Jiang and Judy Kwon, journalists Stella Kim and Jung-eun Kim, and translator Hyoun Joo Song contributed to this report.

[Do Do]

Published April 22, 2014

A relative of a passenger aboard the sunken ferry Sewol cries while waiting for her missing loved one at a port in Jindo, South Korea, Monday, April 21, 2014. Divers continued the grim work of recovering bodies from inside the sunken South Korean ferry in the water off the southern coast Monday, as a newly released transcript showed the ship was crippled by confusion and indecision well after it began listing. The transcript suggests that the chaos may have added to a death toll that could eventually exceed 300. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon) THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

A boy's desperate call from aboard a doomed South Korean ferry captured the horror aboard the ship as it sank in the Yellow see last Wednesday, killing at least 104 and leaving hundreds more missing.

"Save us! We're on a ship and I think it's sinking," Yonhap news agency quoted the boy, who is among the hundreds missing, as saying. His phone call to emergency dispatchers, believed to be the first made from the ship, was initially routed to fire officials before being patched through to the coast guard some two minutes later.

Word of the plaintive call came as investigators said their earlier conclusion that the sunken ferry had made a sharp turn shortly before the disaster was incorrect, and that the vessel changed course much more gradually.

The fire service official asked him to switch the phone to the captain, and the boy reportedly responded, "Do you mean teacher?" The pronunciation of the words for "captain" and "teacher" is similar in Korean, according to Reuters.

"Save us! We're on a ship and I think it's sinking."
- Desperate call from boy aboard doomed S. Korean ferry

The boy's frantic call was followed by about 20 other calls from children on board the ship to the emergency number, the fire service officer said. The boy who made the first call is among the missing, according to the report.

About 250 of the more than 300 missing or dead are students from a single high school, in Ansan near Seoul, who were on their way to the southern tourist island of Jeju.

While data from the ferry, named Sewol, initially indicated the ship made a J-shaped turn before listing heavily and ultimately sinking, a ministry of ocean and fisheries official said Tuesday the data had been incomplete and that the true path of the ship became clear when the data was fully restored.

On Tuesday, dozens of police officers in neon green jackets formed a cordon around the dock of Jindo island as bodies pulled from the sea were brought in. Since divers found a way over the weekend to enter the submerged ferry, the death count has shot up.

Officials said Tuesday that confirmed fatalities had reached 104, with nearly 200 people still missing. If a body lacks identification, details such as height, hair length and clothing are posted on a white signboard for families waiting on the island for news.

The ship's captain, Lee Joon-seok, and two crew members have been arrested on suspicion of negligence and abandoning people in need. Prosecutors detained six other crew members -- four on Monday and two on Tuesday -- but have yet to obtain arrest warrants for them.

Bodies are being identified visually, but family members have been providing DNA samples in case decomposition makes that impossible.

The bodies are then driven in ambulances to two tents: one for men and boys, the other for women and girls. Families listen quietly outside as an official briefs them, then line up and file in. Only relatives are allowed inside.

This heartbreak awaits many families of those still missing from the submerged ferry Sewol, or at least those whose relatives' bodies are ultimately recovered. Families who once dreamed of miraculous rescues now simply hope their loved ones' remains are recovered soon, before the ocean does much more damage.

"At first, I was just very sad, but now it's like an endless wait," said Woo Dong-suk, a construction worker and uncle of one of the students. "It's been too long already. The bodies must be decayed. The parents' only wish right now is to find the bodies before they are badly decomposed."

In Ansan, funerals were held for more than 10 of the teens Tuesday, and education officials were building a temporary memorial that they expected to complete by Wednesday.

At the city education office, parents issued a letter pleading for more government help in the rescue, and condemning its response so far. The letter also criticized media for reporting false rumors, and for doggedly pursuing interviews with surviving children.

"The children say that when they look at the window, sudden fear of water seizes them. What the children need is utmost stability," said Jang Dong-won, father of a rescued female student.

The families, and South Koreans more broadly, have at times responded with fury. The captain initially told passengers to stay in their rooms and waited more than half an hour to issue an evacuation order as the Sewol sank. By then, the ship had tilted so much it is believed that many passengers were trapped inside.

At a Cabinet briefing Monday, President Park Geun-hye said, "What the captain and part of the crew did is unfathomable from the viewpoint of common sense. Unforgivable, murderous behavior." The comments were posted online by the presidential Blue House.

Lee, 68, 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.

A transcript of ship-to-shore communications released Sunday revealed a ship that was crippled with indecision. A crew member asked repeatedly whether passengers would be rescued after abandoning ship even as the ferry tilted so sharply that it became impossible to escape.

Emergency task force spokesman Koh Myung-seok said bodies have mostly been found on the third and fourth floor of the ferries, where many passengers seemed to have gathered. Many students were also housed in cabins on the fourth floor, near the stern of the ship, Koh said.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

[Do Do]

BY JAMES PEARSON AND MEEYOUNG CHO
SEOUL Thu Apr 24, 2014 7:12am EDT

A mother whose teenage child was onboard the capsized Sewol ferry and is missing, cries as she reads messages dedicated to the missing and dead passengers on the ship at a port where many family members wait for news from the search and rescue team in Jindo April 24, 2014.
CREDIT: REUTERS/KIM KYUNG-HOON

A boy and girl trapped in a sinking South Korean ferry with hundreds of other high school students tied their life jacket cords together, a diver who recovered their bodies said, presumably so they wouldn't float apart.

The diver had to separate the two because he could not carry two corpses up to the surface at the same time.

"I started to cry thinking that they didn't want to leave each other," he told the Kyunghyang Shinmun newspaper on the island of Jindo on Thursday, near where the overloaded ferry went down last week.

The parents of the boy whose shaking voice first raised the alarm that an overloaded ferry was sinking believe his body has also been found, the coastguard said.

The parents had seen his body and clothes and concluded he was their son, but he has not been formally identified.

More than 300 people, most of them students and teachers from the Danwon High School, are dead or missing presumed dead after the April 16 disaster. The confirmed death toll on Thursday was 171.

The Sewol ferry, weighing almost 7,000 tons, sank on a routine trip from the port of Incheon, near Seoul, to the southern holiday island of Jeju. Investigations are focused on human error and mechanical failure.

Prosecutors said they had raided two shipping watchdogs, the Korean Shipping Association and the Korean Register of Shipping, as part of their expanded investigation into the disaster. Yonhap news agency said they would investigate whether ship safety certificates were in order.

"The objective was to investigate malpractices and corruption in the entire shipping industry," Song In-taek, head deputy chief prosecutor at Incheon District Prosecution Service, told reporters.

Prosecutors have also raided the home of Yoo Byung-un, the head of a family that owns the Chonghaejin Marine Co. Ltd, the company that operated the Sewol. They had also seized another ferry run by the company to check for safety.

A lawyer for the family said it would take "all legal and social responsibility for this tragic accident if they have to as major stakeholders of the company". He did not say the family was assuming liability.

Of the 476 passengers and crew on board the Sewol, 339 were children and teachers from the school in Ansan, a gritty suburb on the outskirts of Seoul, who were on an outing to Jeju.

As the ferry began sinking, the crew told the children to stay in their cabins. Most of those who obeyed died. Many of those who flouted or did not hear the instructions and went out on deck were rescued.

Some of the bodies had their hands held tightly like fetuses to try to keep warm, a newspaper said.

Classes at the school resumed on Thursday with banks of flowers surrounding photos of each of the victims, dressed in their school uniforms. Almost 250 teenagers and teachers at the school have died or are presumed dead.

Fellow students filed past, offering white chrysanthemums in somber tributes. Yellow ribbons, with names and messages inscribed, were tied around a chain-link fence.

FIRST DISTRESS CALL

In the classrooms of the missing, friends posted messages on desks, blackboards and windows, in the days after disaster struck, asking for the safe return of their friends.

"If I see you again, I'll tell you I love you, because I haven't said it to you enough," read one.

The school provided therapy sessions for the children as they returned.

The first distress call from the sinking vessel was made by a boy with a shaking voice, three minutes after the vessel made its fateful last turn, a fire service officer told Reuters.

The boy 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 on board the ship to the emergency number.

The ship, 146 meters (479 feet) long and 22 meters wide, was over three times overloaded, according to official recommendations, with cargo poorly stowed and inadequate ballast.

Moon Ki-han, an executive at Uryeon (Union Transport Co.), the firm that supervised cargo loading, told Reuters there were 105 containers onboard, some of which toppled into the sea as the ship listed.

Forty-five were loaded on to the front deck and 60 into the lower decks, Moon said. In total, the ship was carrying 3,600 metric tons of cargo including containers, vehicles and other goods, he said.

A member of parliament this week said the Korean Register of Shipping recommended a load of 987 tons for the Sewol.

Captain Lee Joon-seok, 69, and other crew members who abandoned ship have been arrested on negligence charges. Lee was also charged with undertaking an "excessive change of course without slowing down".

One crew member said on Thursday she and six colleagues were "under command" to abandon ship.

The unidentified crew member, speaking briefly to reporters on the way from court back into detention, was hidden behind a surgical mask and wearing a baseball cap with a jacket hood. She did not elaborate.

Another crew member was asked if there was any discussion about trying to save the passengers.

"At that moment, we were on the third floor and except for the third floor situation, we weren't aware of anything else," the crew member said.

(Additional reporting by Kahyun Yang, Miyoung Kim, Sohee Kim an Ju-min Park; Writing by Nick Macfie; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan and Robert Birsel)