JINDO, SOUTH KOREA - South Korean officials have said the recovery operation after Wednesday’s ferry disaster may take two months. Divers are battling strong currents in poor visibility to reach 270 missing passengers - 32 are confirmed dead. Some 174 passengers have been rescued.
Relatives have begun providing DNA samples to help identify the dead. Ferry captain Lee Joon-seok, 69, and two crew members have been arrested. Mr Lee says he delayed the evacuation fearing passengers would ‘drift away’. He faces charges including negligence of duty and violation of maritime law. Divers saw three bodies in the ship on Saturday but were unable to retrieve them.
Asked how long the rescue operation was likely to continue, Shin Won-Nam, the head of the Emergency Management Centre, told reporters that it could take weeks, if not months. ‘We are not sure about it. But according to the experts, the rescue may last one or two months,’ he said.
The arrested captain of the South Korean ferry that capsized three days ago with 476 people on board defended his decision to delay its evacuation, as divers Saturday spotted bodies inside the submerged vessel.
Investigators arrested Lee Joon-Seok and two of his crew early in the morning. All three have been criticised for abandoning hundreds of passengers trapped in the ferry, as they made their own escape. Lee was charged with negligence and failing to secure the safety of passengers in violation of maritime law. Thirty-two people have been confirmed dead in the disaster, but 270 are still missing - most of them children on a high school holiday trip. As the arrests were being made, dive teams who had spent two days vainly battling powerful currents and near zero visibility, finally penetrated the passenger decks of the 6,825-tonne Sewol.
‘Civilian divers spotted three bodies through a window,’ a senior coastguard officer said. ‘They attempted to get in and retrieve them by cracking the window, but it was too difficult,’ he said in a briefing to relatives of the missing. Relatives of the missing passengers, who have been sleeping in a gymnasium on Jindo island near the scene of the disaster, were shown video footage from one dive.
Even with a powerful underwater flashlight, visibility was measured in inches as the diver was seen groping his way blindly along the side of the ship with the help of a pre-attached rope. The coastguard said more ropes were being attached ahead of a major push to get more divers inside.
Captain Lee was arraigned along with the two officers in charge of the bridge at the time. Dressed in dark raincoats with their hoods pulled up, the three kept their heads bowed as they were paraded before TV cameras in a police station. Questioned as to why passengers had been ordered not to move for more than 40 minutes after the ship first foundered, Lee said it was a safety measure. ‘At the time a rescue ship had not arrived. There were also no fishing boats around for rescuers, or other ships to help,’ Lee said.
‘The currents were very strong and the water was cold at that time in the area. ‘I thought that passengers would be swept far away and fall into trouble if they evacuated thoughtlessly,’ he added. Experts have suggested many more people might have escaped if they had moved to reach evacuation points before the ship listed sharply and water started flooding in.
The relatives camped out in the Jindo gym - most of them parents of high school students - have sharply criticised the pace of the rescue operation, accusing officials of incompetence and indifference. Only 174 were rescued when the ferry sank and no new survivors have been found since Wednesday. Nam Sung-Won, whose 17-year-old nephew was among the missing, said the clock was fast running down on the hope that some may have survived. ‘We don’t have much time. Many people here believe this is the last possible day for finding trapped passengers alive.
For those relatives ready to accept the worst outcome, the coastguard had set up a tent near the gym to take DNA tests to facilitate eventual identification of recovered bodies. ‘Up until yesterday, I was still hanging on to some hope,’ said Han Mi-Ok, whose teenage son was listed as missing. ‘But today I’m bracing myself for the worst,’ she told AFP Saturday before entering the tent to providing a sample.
More than 350 of those on board were students from Danwon High School in Ansan city just south of Seoul. The unfolding tragedy was compounded by the apparent suicide Friday of the school’s vice principal, Kang Min-Kyu, who was seemingly overcome by guilt at having survived the sinking. Initial questioning of the captain has focused on what actually caused the ferry to sink. Tracking data from the Maritime Ministry showed the vessel made a sharp turn just before sending its first distress signal.
Some experts believe a tight turn could have dislodged the heavy cargo manifest - including more than 150 vehicles - and destabilised the vessel, causing it to list heavily and then capsize. Captain Lee confirmed he was not at the helm when the ship ran into trouble. The ship was being steered by a 55-year-old helmsman identified by his surname Jo, under the supervision of the female third officer. ‘It may have partly been my fault,’ Jo said at the arraignment. ‘But the steering gear rotated unusually fast.’
Divers searching for survivors of a capsized South Korean ferry saw three bodies floating through a window of a passenger cabin on Saturday but were unable to retrieve them, the coastguard said, hours after the ship’s captain was arrested. The ferry, carrying 476 passengers, many of them schoolchildren, and crew, capsized on Wednesday on a journey from the port of Incheon to the southern holiday island of Jeju.
Some 174 people have been rescued and hopes were fading for those still missing. The divers saw the bodies in a submerged cabin where many of the children were believed to be trapped, but were unable to break the glass to retrieve them. No sounds have been detected from within the capsized hull, the coastguard told reporters. The discovery comes amid stalled rescue efforts due to strong tides as hundreds of navy, coastguard and private divers scour the site, 25 km (15 miles) off the southwest coast of South Korea.