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The Country Has Moved On, but Their Grief Has No End

Eight years after the Sewol ferry disaster took the lives of 250 South Korean students, parents say they are still struggling to come to terms with the lessons the tragedy brought to bear.

By Choe Sang-Hun

ANSAN, South Korea — His room remains as it was the day he left on a school trip in 2014, his bed still neatly arranged with the same pillow and blanket. The trophy he won in a piano competition stands proudly on a bookshelf. On his desk are his computer and cellphone, untouched next to some of his favorite snacks.

Lee Ho-jin died eight years ago at the age of 16, one of 250 sophomore students whose lives were taken when the Sewol ferry sank off the southwestern coast of South Korea on April 16, 2014. More than 300 people died that day, with all the students coming from Danwon High School in Ansan, a city just south of Seoul.

South Koreans quickly rallied around the victims’ families in the aftermath, united in their outrage. But South Korea’s most traumatic peacetime disaster soon divided the country as critics vilified the families’ quest for accountability and proper compensation as an antigovernment campaign. Eight years later — pressured by time and daily life — much of the country has moved on while Ansan seems frozen in grief.

To outsiders, the city may appear like any other in South Korea, with its quiet neighborhoods and tall apartment buildings. In cafes, young couples discuss housing prices and the cost of raising children. But a closer look reveals the ways in which Ansan is serving as a memorial to the victims and still struggling to come to terms with the lessons the disaster brought to bear on the entire nation.

Families in Ansan said that at least three parents have killed themselves after losing their children to the sinking. Some families have disintegrated in divorce. Others have moved away to grieve alone. Still others have banded together to console each other, keep their children's memories alive and help the nation understand the depths of their sacrifice.

A memorial in the shape of a yellow whale now overlooks the playground of Danwon High School. At the 4.16 Memorial Classroom , a museum dedicated to the students, the victims’ classrooms are recreated with desks, blackboards and other furniture from the school. Visitors realize the enormity of the loss when the names of all 250 students and 11 teachers who drowned are recited at the end of a video presentation.

“I go to my son’s classroom​ here​ to see his name, picture and desk and regain power​,” ​said Jeon In-suk, 51, who lost her only son, Im Kyong-bin​, and began working as a ​volunteer ​guide at the museum ​last year. Before that, she had camped out in front of the presidential office in Seoul for three long winter months, demanding an answer to whether official negligence during the rescue operation contributed to the death of her son.

Families talked about the visceral pain that follows them and how cities that undergo tragedies, like Uvalde, Texas, carry the weight of a loss that only victims and relatives can truly understand. But parents also said they have learned there was no way to deal with calamity other than to live through the grief.

“You just have to cry when it’s hard; there is no way around it,” said Kim Mi-ok, Ho-jin’s mother. “No one, nothing, can console you.” She has refused to report her son’s death to the government and continues to pay his monthly cellphone bill as if one day she might hear his voice on the other side.

“When I miss him, I lie on his bed, hug his pillow, smell his smell and cry,” said Ms. Kim, 53.

On the day the Sewol ferry sank, live footage of the capsized boat slowly disappearing under the water was broadcast across South Korea. Fishermen and poorly equipped rescuers tried desperately to break windows and save passengers trapped inside. Cellphones salvaged from the wreckage showed videos of children frantically saying goodbye to their parents as the cold waves filled their cabins.

The disaster had been born of greed and negligence . The owner of the Sewol had added extra berths, making the ferry top-heavy. On its final voyage, it was carrying twice the legal limit of cargo, having dumped most of the ballast water that would have helped stabilize it. Regulators​ ruled the ship seaworthy. But when it made a sharp turn while fighting a strong current, it lost its balance.

As it keeled over, its crew kept urging the passengers through the intercom to wait in their cabins. The first coast guard boat that arrived at the scene did little more than pick up the fleeing crew members, including the captain ​​, Lee Joon-seok, while passengers trapped inside banged on the windows and the ship slowly descended beneath the waves. The government initially told the nation that all the passengers had been rescued. Of the 476 people on board the Sewol, only 172 were rescued.

More than 150 regulators, crew members, ship inspectors and officials from ferry and loading companies have been indicted for their roles in the disaster. South Korea tightened safety rules and made laws to crack down on corruption and companies that put profit ahead of safety .​

Ansan families called multiple rounds of government investigations a whitewash because they never properly investigated the role of official incompetence and none of the top officials they held responsible have​ gone to prison. Angry parents camped out in central Seoul, some on weekslong hunger strikes, demanding a more thorough investigation. A new investigative panel​ is set to wrap up its work this month.

But as the ​mourning and ​investigations have carried on, helping to precipitate the ouster of then-President Park Geun-hye in 2017, many South Koreans, especially conservatives, have said they have had enough, accusing victims’ families of holding the country hostage and angling for bigger compensation packages from the government.

“People think it’s over and they wonder why we continue to protest,” said Kim Byong-kwon, 57, who left Ansan and moved to a new city and didn’t tell his new neighbors that he had lost his daughter, Kim Bitnara​, in the Sewol disaster. “But they don’t understand that our pain is not healed, and that nothing has changed.”

Kang Soon-joong, who also lost his daughter, joined an early morning soccer club to keep himself distracted from an onslaught of grief and anger. “Without soccer, I would be dead by now,” said Mr. Kang, 63. He abandoned friends of 50 years after they called the victims’ families “dealers of corpses.”

The most crushing thing of all has been the sense of guilt among parents who feel they failed to protect their children and are haunted by the memories of how they died.

When she first heard the news of the Sewol, Ms. Kim, Ho-jin’s mother, immediately called her son on the ferry. “Mom, don’t worry. I see the coast guard out the window,” Ms. Kim remembered ​him saying. “I will see you when I get back home.”

When ​she called him again, he didn’t ​answer.​ ​Ho-jin’s body was recovered 16 days later, and according to Korean funeral custom, he was buried three days afterward. It was May 5, Children’s Day in South Korea.

His father, Lee Yong-ki, took to drinking​, weeping alone while driving and listening to music. “Walking on and on along a stream near my home like a woman who lost her mind was all I could do,” Ms. Kim said. “Ho-jin was the first person on earth to call me mom.”

Ho-jeong, one of Ho-jin’s two younger sisters, said she hated spring and the April blossoms because they offer painful reminders every year of her brother’s death. Ho-yoon, the youngest child in the family, began hurting herself after her brother died.

But the family has also started to rebuild.

“My husband constantly had nightmares, kicking his legs and even grabbing me by the collar,” Ms. Kim said. “One night, when I hugged him after he let out a scream, he crouched like a baby. ​He looked so lonely when I looked at his back.”

This year, Mr. Lee agreed to take medication for anger management and panic disorder. Every Sunday, the family visits a memorial park where Ho-jin is buried.​ ​This year, on her birthday on April 19, Ho-jeong for the first time since the sinking asked her family to eat out together.​

She sends ​Ho-jin a Facebook message at midnight every day​ for fear she might forget him as much of the society has. ​Mr. Lee said it was important to keep the memories of Sewol victims alive: “We want a safer world where children no longer have to die like ours.”

Choe Sang-Hun is the Seoul bureau chief for The New York Times, focusing on news on North and South Korea. More about Choe Sang-Hun

South Koreans still seek answers 10 years after Sewol ferry disaster

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South Korean teens tell how they were left to escape sinking ferry

By Ju-min Park ANSAN South Korea (Reuters) - Six teenagers who survived South Korea's worst maritime disaster in 44 years told on Monday how classmates helped them float free as water flooded their cabins despite crew instructions to stay put even as their ferry sank, killing more than 300 people. The teenagers, whose names were withheld to protect their privacy, were giving testimony at the trial of 15 crew members, who face charges ranging from homicide to negligence for abandoning the sinking ship. "We were waiting and, when the water started coming in, the class rep told everyone to put on the life vests ... the door was above our heads, so she said we'll float and go through the door and that's how we came out," one of the teenagers said. "Other kids who got out before us pulled us out." The ferry Sewol sank on April 16, killing 304 people, as many as 250 of them school children on a field trip. Twelve of their teachers were also killed. The ferry was on a routine trip from the port of Incheon south to Jeju island, carrying students and teachers from the Danwon High School on the outskirts of Seoul as well as other passengers and cargo. Another of the teenagers told how crew members had told passengers, "specifically the students of Danwon High School", to stay in their cabins. "Water started to fill in and friends helped us move out," the student said. Others described how coastguard officers waited outside the stricken ferry for passengers to swim out rather than go into the ship to try and rescue them. "They were outside. They pulled us (onto boats) but they didn't come inside to help," one said. "We said to ourselves, 'why aren't they coming in?'." "MORE FISHERMEN THAN RESCUERS" Another student said it appeared there were more fishermen involved in the rescue than coastguard. Like others, she said the crew should be punished severely for their actions. "More than that, I want to know the fundamental reason why my friends had to end up like that," she said. The six teenage survivors described how there were repeated orders not to move from their cabins. Orders to put on their life vests came much later and without any information about what was happening to the ship as it began to list sharply. They were the first of 75 children who survived due to give evidence in the trial at the Gwangju court, which has been moved to Ansan south of Seoul to accommodate the students. Five of them gave their evidence facing away from the court. One testified from another room via closed-circuit television. The crew members on trial, including the captain, Lee Joon-seok, have said they thought it was the coastguard's job to evacuate passengers. Video footage of their escape triggered outrage across South Korea. Two musicians from the Philippines who had been working on the ship testified that the crew appeared to be in a state of panic as they gathered on the ship's bridge as it started to list, making no effort to get passengers off the vessel. "I remember them panicked and worried," one of the pair, who was identified only by her first name, Alex, told the court. She said the captain was crouched and holding onto a metal bar, apparently shaking with fear, and a junior ship's officer at the helm when the vessel started to list was crying loudly. The government of President Park Geun-hye was heavily criticised over the slow and ineffective handling of the rescue operation. Park has vowed to break up the coastguard and streamline rescue operations, which are now split between the police, coastguard and others, into a single national agency. The disaster also sparked South Korea's biggest manhunt as authorities searched for Yoo Byung-un, the man at the head of a family business that operated the doomed ferry. Yoo's badly decomposed body was identified last week after it was found by a farmer at an orchard last month. Earlier on Monday, a close associate of Yoo, a woman identified by police only by her last name of Kim, was arrested after handing herself in. It was believed she helped him elude police after the disaster. Another woman, the wife of Yoo's driver who was thought to have been with him during his final days at large, also turned herself in to police. Kim's arrest came three days after police stormed an apartment on the outskirts of Seoul and found Yoo's elder son, Dae-gyun, who was wanted for embezzlement. Yoo Dae-gyun was not believed to have been as actively involved in management of the family business as his younger brother, who is believed to be in the United States. He said he only learned of his father's death from police. Extensive decomposition of Yoo Byung-un's body meant it was not possible to determine the cause of his death despite forensic and DNA tests, authorities said last week. (Writing by Jack Kim; Editing by Paul Tait and Robert Birsel)

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South Korea ferry verdict: Sewol captain escapes death penalty

Captain Lee sentenced to 36 years in prison for abandoning ship but the victims' families say it is not enough

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The captain of the South Korean ferry that capsized in April has escaped the death penalty and has instead been sentenced to 36 years in jail for his role in the tragedy.

Lee Joon-seok was acquitted of murder but found guilty of gross negligence for abandoning passengers onboard the overloaded Sewol ferry. More than 300 people died in what was one of South Korea’s worst maritime disasters. The vast majority of the victims were school children.

Captain Lee and several of his crew members fled the ship after it capsized and were among the first to be rescued by the coast guard. They were accused of causing hundreds of unnecessary deaths by failing to issue evacuation orders and telling the children to stay in their cabins.

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The court said it could not conclude that the defendants "were aware that all of the victims would die because of their actions and they had an intention to kill them," therefore, "the murder charges are not accepted," The Times reports.

Prosecutors had demanded the death penalty and before the trial even started, President Park Geun-hye made a public statement condemning the crew's action, saying that their decision to abandon ship had been "tantamount to murder".

The sentence means that Lee, aged 69, is likely to spend the rest of life in jail for his role in the tragedy, the BBC 's Steve Evans reports. The 14 crew members were found guilty of various charges, including negligence and were sentenced to between five and 20 years in prison.

The victims’ families issued a statement saying that they were "devastated" by the verdict and that justice had failed, The Guardian reports. One mother shouted: "It's not fair. What about the lives of our children? They (the defendants) deserve worse than death."

Coinciding with the verdicts, authorities have officially called off the seven-month search for the missing bodies. Divers have retrieved 295 bodies from the ocean, but nine still remain unaccounted for.

South Korea ferry: students reveal horror of Sewol disaster

Survivors of South Korea's Sewol ferry disaster have begun testifying against the captain and crew. The passenger ferry capsized on 16 April, killing 304 of the 476 people on board. More than 300 passengers were Danwon High School pupils on an organised trip, but only 75 students survived. The captain, Lee Joon-Seok, and three senior crew members are accused of "homicide through wilful negligence", a charge that can carry the death penalty, reports The Guardian . Eleven other crew are being tried on lesser violations of maritime law.

The disaster also led to South Korea's biggest manhunt, in which authorities searched for Yoo Byung-un, the owner of the ferry company. His body, which was badly decomposed, was identified a few days ago after it was discovered by a farmer in an orchard last month. Investigators say the ferry was overloaded, having been illegally modified to carry more passengers and cargo. Six students, whose names were withheld to protect their privacy, have been giving evidence. Here is what the court has heard so far:

Passengers repeatedly told to stay put

One teenager said crew members had repeatedly told passengers – "specifically the students of Danwon High School" – to stay in their cabins. Prosecutors claim it was these instructions that partly led to more deaths. Despite the ferry listing heavily, with passengers thrown to one side, an internal tannoy told passengers to put on their life vests and stay put. One student said that she and her classmates obeyed the order until the ferry had listed so far that the door to their cabin was above their heads. Her classmates clambered up fixed furniture and then pulled others up as the water rose inside the cabin, she said.

No help from crew

One witness said that at no time did any crew help her or those with whom she escaped. The bulk of the charges against the crew arise from the fact that they chose to abandon ship while hundreds of people were still trapped inside. The members of crew who stayed to help passengers were among those who died. The crew members on trial, including the captain, have said they thought it was the coastguard's job to evacuate passengers. Students say even the coastguard officers failed to come aboard to try and rescue them but simply waited outside the ferry to fish passengers out of the water.

Classmates swept away

One student described watching a wave sweep her classmates back inside the sinking boat. She said that she and a group of students managed to move along a horizontal stairwell towards an escape hatch. But as she jumped out, water swept over their escape route. "There were many classmates in the corridor and most of them were swept back into the ship," she said.

South Korea ferry: 'impossible' to determine how owner died

The death of the billionaire businessman blamed for the South Korean ferry disaster remains a mystery after foresnic experts told the BBC that the cause of death was still "unknown".

The body of fugitive Yoo Byung-eun was discovered by South Korean officials in June but was only identified last week. He went on the run soon after the Sewol ferry sank off the coast of South Korea earlier this year, killing 304 passengers, most of whom were young students.

Yoo was the owner of the ferry operator Chonghaejin Marine Co and nationwide manhunt began after police said they wanted to question him his role in the tragedy.

It was revealed that he had "hidden in a cupboard at his holiday home to evade arrest" and his body was discovered in an orchard near his cabin. The remains were discovered on 12 June, but were only identified as Yoo last week.

"It was impossible to conclude the cause of death since Yoo's body was in a very advanced stage of decomposition," said Seo Joong-seok, director of South Korea's National Forensic Service (NFS).

The tragedy in April sparked national criticism of the government and allegations of corruption among top officials.

A government investigation into the incident concluded earlier this month that the ferry sank "due to negligence and corruption", the BBC reports.

The report cited "lax regulation, poor safety inspections and a slow and badly-coordinated coast guard response" as contributing factors.

Investigators claimed that the incident had been "man-made" and was a result of top level officials "prioritising profit over safety", The Independent reports.

The report found that the disaster could have been avoided if:

• The licensing of the ship had been properly regulated. The report revealed that the vessel was licensed based on fake documents.
• Less cargo had been onboard. Officials confirmed that the Sewol had been illegally modified and was carrying almost double its legal limit.
• Adequate safety checks had been performed by the Korean Register of Shipping.
• The coastguard had responded faster and issued better rescue guidelines.
• The captain had not delayed in issuing evacuation orders.

The trial of the ferry's captain, Lee Joon-seok, and members of his crew is currently ongoing. Lee is charged with manslaughter and the other crewmembers face charges ranging from negligence to homicide.

South Korea ferry: death toll hits 100 as salvage begins

THE death toll from last week’s sinking of the South Korean ferry Sewol has passed 100 as hope runs out for those still missing. Divers will keep searching for bodies for a further two days, after which salvage experts will raise the ship.

According to the BBC , there were 476 people on the ship, of whom 339 were children and teachers taking a pre-exam school trip to Jeju island. A total of 174 passengers and crew are known to be safe, while 104 bodies have been recovered.

The families of the remaining 198 have accepted that the chances of finding anyone alive five days after the accident are “practically nil”, says The Guardian . They have agreed to allow officials to abandon the labour-intensive and dangerous search for survivors by divers in favour of raising the ship using salvage equipment.

Woo Dong-suk, an uncle of one of the missing schoolchildren told the paper: “It’s been too long already. The bodies must be decayed. The parents’ only wish right now is to find them before they are badly decomposed.”

Divers will prioritise getting into the ship’s restaurant, where they believe many of the passengers were trapped, in the last days of searching. Meanwhile, an underwater robot has been taken to the scene. It will be used to help raise the ship.

The Sewol began to list at 8.58am local time on 16 April and, within two and a half hours, had completely capsized. It is still not known what caused the disaster: there were reports that witnesses heard an impact at the time but these have not been repeated or confirmed.

The Guardian says South Korean investigators are examining evidence that an inexperienced third mate executed a dangerously sharp turn just before the ferry started listing. The captain, Lee Joon-seok, was not on the bridge at the time.

Lee, 69, and six other crew members, have been detained by the authorities. The captain has been charged with negligence and failing to secure the safety of the passengers, says Sky News .

South Korean president Park Geun-hye has publicly accused Lee of “murderous acts”, in what some observers saw as an attempt to deflect attention from an inadequate response to the disaster by the authorities.

South Korea ferry captain: ‘I bow my head in apology’

The captain of the South Korean ferry that sank this week with 475 passengers on board says he delayed issuing evacuation orders because he feared passengers would "drift away".

Lee Joon-seok, described as an industry veteran by the ship's owners and an "expert" by others, was arrested with two crew members yesterday. He has faced growing criticism for not giving orders to evacuate quickly enough.

He told television reporters: "The current was very strong, the temperature of the ocean water was cold, and I thought that if people left the ferry without proper judgement, if they were not wearing a life jacket, and even if they were, they would drift away and face many other difficulties.”

He added: "I am sorry to the people of South Korea for causing a disturbance and I bow my head in apology to the families of the victims.”

As rescue operations continue for a fourth day, the number of missing stands at 273 with 29 confirmed dead. Some 174 passengers have been rescued.

Investigators are now concentrating on the sharp turn the ship took prior to its listing and probing whether an evacuation order could have saved more lives.

The 69-year-old captain faces charges including negligence of duty and violation of maritime law. The two crew members were arrested for failing in their duty to assist passengers.

South Korea ferry passengers 'told to stay put' as ship sank

NINE people have been confirmed dead and 300 are still missing as the search operation continues in the wake of the South Korean ferry disaster, which looks likely to be one of the worst maritime disasters for decades.

Officials say that the number of casualties could rise "drastically" over the next few days, with hundreds of people believed to be trapped inside the sunken vessel.

Emergency services said last night that they had managed to save just 164 of the 470 people on board.

Survivors who were taken to the nearby island of Jindo said that crew members gave conflicting instructions as the Sewol ferry began to list violently and then sink, The Times reports.

"It was fine, then the ship went 'boom', and there was a noise of cargo falling," one passenger, Cha Eun-ok, told reporters. "The on-board announcement told people to stay put [but] people who stayed are trapped," she said.

Urgent rescue efforts are ongoing with 40 coastguard and military vessels and a team of specialist navy divers operating in the choppy waters about 20 km (12 miles) off the country's southwestern coast. But the operation has been hampered by poor weather.

Meanwhile, frustration has grown among families of the victims, as police refused to let a group of 30 civilian divers take part in the search for any survivors who may still be trapped in the sunken ferry.

The cause of the disaster was not immediately clear. The state broadcaster YTN reported that strong winds had caused cargo on top of the ship to move. The ship then began to list as passengers were instructed to put on their life jackets.

The search effort continues but many rescuers do not hold out much hope of finding any more survivors.

"Considering the water temperature, depth and the time elapsed, anyone trapped inside is unlikely to have survived," a rescue worker told local media.

Hundreds missing as South Korean ferry capsizes

TWO people are dead and almost 300 are missing after a ferry carrying 476 people capsized off the coast of South Korea.

The ferry sank between the port of Incheon, in the north-west of the country, and the southern resort island of Jeju. Among the passengers were 300 school students.

A major rescue operation is underway including dozens of coastguard and navy vessels and 18 helicopters. It was reported that 368 people had been rescued, but the BBC explains that after "a counting error" the number was halved to 180, leaving almost 300 people unaccounted for.

The two people have been confirmed dead are said to be a female crew member in her twenties, and a man who died in hospital.

The Sewol, a car and passenger ferry, sounded its distress signal shortly before 9am local time after it collided with rocks and began listing dangerously. Ferries had been cancelled overnight due to heavy fog, but locals reported that visibility had been fair by the time the Sewol set sail.

Passengers said that the ship had struck rocks 12 miles from the island of Byungpoong.

"We heard a big thumping sound and the boat stopped," one passenger told South Korean TV network YTN . "The boat is tilting and we have to hold on to something to stay seated."

One rescued student, Lim Hyung Min, told YTN that he heard a loud thump, and then the ferry began to sink. Everyone was ordered to put on their life jackets and jump overboard, he said. "I had to swim a bit to get to the boat to be rescued... The water was so cold and I wanted to live."

YTN reported that all the students have now been rescued, but the South Korean coast guard has yet to confirm those accounts.

Images shown on South Korean television showed the ship at a 45 degree angle. Later, the ship appeared to have overturned and was almost completely submerged.

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South Korean Ferry That Sank 3 Years Ago, Killing Hundreds, Lifted From Sea

SEOUL, South Korea — A 6,800-ton South Korean ferry emerged from the water on Thursday, nearly three years after it capsized and sank into violent seas off the country's southwestern coast, an emotional moment for the country that continues to search for closure to one of its deadliest disasters ever.

More than 300 people — most of whom were students on a high school trip — died when the Sewol sank on April 16, 2014, touching off an outpouring of national grief and soul searching about long-ignored public safety and regulatory failures. The public outrage over what was seen as a botched rescue job by the government contributed to the recent ouster of Park Geun-hye as president.

Workers on two barges began the salvaging operation Wednesday night, rolling up 66 cables connected to a frame of metal beams divers spent months putting beneath the ferry, which had been lying on its left side in about 40 meters (130 feet) of water.

By 3:45 a.m., Sewol's stabilizer surfaced from the water. About an hour later, the blue-and-white right side of ferry, rusty and scratched and its name "SEWOL" no longer visible from where it was, emerged for the first time in more than 1,000 days.

By about 7 a.m., the ferry had been raised enough for workers to climb on it and further fasten it to the barges.

Lee Cheoljo, an official from the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries, told reporters that workers will need until late afternoon or the evening to raise the ferry until its upper side is about 13 meters (42 feet) above the surface.

Salvage crews will then load the ferry onto a semi-submersible, heavy-lift vessel that will carry it to a mainland port. The loading process, including emptying the ferry of water and fuel, is expected to take days.

The bodies of 295 passengers were recovered after the sinking on April 16, 2014, but nine are still missing . Relatives, some of whom who are watching from two fishing boats just outside the operation area, are hoping that those remains will be found inside the ferry.

"I can see it. I can see where my daughter is," Park Eun-mi, the mother of a missing 17-year-old girl, told a television crew as her boat approached the salvaging site on Wednesday. Lee Geum-hee, the mother of another missing student, said, "We just want one thing — for the ship to be pulled up so that we can take our children home."

PHOTOS: South Korean Ferry Capsizes

Once the ferry reaches a port 90 kilometers (55 miles) away in the city of Mokpo, in about two weeks, workers will begin clearing the mud and debris and search for the remains of the missing victims. An investigation committee will also be formed to search for clues that could further explain the cause of the sinking, which has been blamed on overloaded cargo, improper storage and other negligence.

The ferry's captain survived and is serving a life sentence after a court found him guilty of committing homicide through "willful negligence" because he fled the ship without issuing an evacuation order.

Park was forced to defend herself against accusations that she was out of contact for several hours on the day of the sinking. The allegations were included in an impeachment bill lawmakers passed against Park in December, amid broader corruption suspicions.

Park was formally removed from office by the Constitutional Court earlier this month. She is now under criminal investigation over suspicions that she conspired with a confidante to extort money and favors from companies and allow the friend to secretly interfere with state affairs.

South Korea in 2015 agreed to an 85.1 billion won ($76 million) deal with a consortium led by China's state-run Shanghai Salvage Co. to raise the Sewol.

The government initially planned to salvage the ferry by the end of last year, but the process was delayed due to strong currents and unfavorable weather conditions.

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Vice-principal of South Korea school in ferry disaster commits suicide

By Jungmin Jang and Ju-min Park MOKPO/JINDO, South Korea (Reuters) - The vice-principal of a South Korean high school who accompanied hundreds of pupils on a ferry that capsized has committed suicide, police said on Friday, as hopes faded of finding any of the 274 missing alive. The Sewol, carrying 476 passengers and crew, capsized on Wednesday on a journey from the port of Incheon to the southern holiday island of Jeju. Kang Min-gyu, 52, had been missing since Thursday. He appeared to have hanged himself with his belt from a tree outside a gym in the port city of Jindo where relatives of the people missing on the ship, mostly children from the school, were gathered. Police said Kang did not leave a suicide note and that they had started looking for him after he was reported missing by a fellow teacher. He was rescued from the ferry after it capsized. Twenty-eight people had been officially declared dead before Kang's suicide. One hundred and seventy-four were rescued. Most of the missing are students from the Danwon High School on the outskirts of Seoul, who were on a holiday trip. The government revised the total number of passengers and the number of people rescued, saying there had been further inaccuracies in tabulation, without elaborating. Divers are fighting strong tides and murky waters to get to the sunken ship. The likelihood of finding any of the missing alive is slim. At the high school in Ansan, an industrial town near Seoul, many friends and family of the missing gathered in somber silence, with occasional sounds of sobbing breaking the quiet. "When I first received the call telling me the news, at that time I still had hope," said Cho Kyung-mi, who was waiting for news of her missing 16 year-old nephew at the school. "And now it's all gone." In the classrooms of the missing, fellow students have left messages on desks, blackboards and windows, asking for the safe return of their missing friends. "If I see you again, I'll tell you I love you, because I haven't said it to you enough," reads one message. Investigations into the sinking, South Korea's worst maritime accident in 21 years based on possible casualties, have centered on possible crew negligence, problems with cargo stowage and structural defects of the vessel, although the ship appears to have passed all of its safety and insurance checks. The ship's 69-year-old captain, was arrested early on Saturday, Yonhap news agency said, after coming under scrutiny over witness reports that he was among the first to escape the sinking vessel during its 400-km (300-mile) voyage to Jeju. According to investigators, Captain Lee Joon-seok was not on the bridge at the time the Sewol started to list sharply, with a junior officer at the wheel. Yonhap said Lee faced five charges including negligence of duty and violation of maritime law. Arrest warrants were also issued for the junior officer and one other crew member for failing in their duty to aid passengers. "I'm not sure where the captain was before the accident. However, right after the accident, I saw him rushing back into the steering house ahead of me," said Oh Young-seok, one of the helmsmen on the ship who was off duty and resting at the time. "He calmly asked by how much the ship was tilted, and tried to re-balance the ship," said Oh, who was speaking from a hospital bed in the city of Mokpo on Friday, where the injured have been taken. NORMAL PRACTICE Handing over the helm is normal practice on the voyage from Incheon to Jeju, which usually takes 13.5 hours, according to local shipping crew. Divers gained access to the cargo deck of the ferry on Friday, although that was not close to the passenger quarters, according to a coastguard official. Other coastguard officials said that divers made several attempts to reach the passenger areas but failed. "We cannot even see the ship's white color. Our people are just touching the hull with their hands," Kim Chun-il, a diver from Undine Marine Industries, told relatives of the missing. The ferry went down in calm conditions and was following a frequently traveled route in familiar waters. Although relatively close to shore, the area was free of rocks and reefs. Lee has not commented on when he left the ship, although he has apologized for the loss of life. He was described as an industry veteran by the officials from Chonghaejin Marine Co Ltd, the ship owner, and others who had met him described him as an "expert". "I don't know why he abandoned the ship like that," said Ju Hi-chun, a maritime author who interviewed the captain in 2006 as one of the experts on the route to Jeju island. But he added: "Koreans don't have the view that they have to stay with their ship until the end. It is a different culture from the West." Some media reports have said the vessel turned sharply, causing cargo to shift and the ship to list before capsizing. Marine investigators and the coastguard have said it was too early to pinpoint a cause for the accident and declined to comment on the possibility of the cargo shifting. The record of the ferry owner was also under investigation and documents were removed from its headquarters in Incheon. Chonghaejin Marine Co Ltd is an unlisted company that operates five ships. It reported an operating loss of 785 million won ($756,000) last year. According to data from South Korea's Financial Supervisory Service, a government body, Chonghaejin is "indirectly" owned by two sons of the owner of a former shipping company called Semo Marine which went bankrupt in 1997. (Additional reporting by Jack Kim, Miyoung Kim, James Pearson, Sohee Kim and Cho Meeyoung; Writing by David Chance; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan and Nick Macfie/Mark Heinrich)

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South Korea ferry disaster: Heartbreaking texts sent from students on vessel

SEOUL (AFP) - 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 Young Jin 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," Woong Ki 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 Woong Ki 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.

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Student Survivors of South Korea Ferry Accident Testify Against Crew

• By VOA News

A group of teenaged student survivors of South Korea's ferry disaster began giving video testimony under tight security Monday in the murder trial of the vessel's 15 captain and crew members who fled as the vessel sank.

The students, appearing in Ansan, South Korea, will give their testimonies via video link to avoid direct contact with the defendants and their lawyers out of concern they might feel intimidated.

One of the students, a girl, said the crew ordered them to stay in their cabin and they obeyed until water started rising in the room.

She said they put on life vests and floated through a doorway that was then above their heads after the ship listed to one side. They were pulled up by other students outside the cabin.

Another student testified that neither she nor any of those who escaped were at any time helped by a member of the crew.

The actual trial is taking place in Gwangju, 265 kilometers (165 miles) south of Seoul, but the judges and lawyers decamped to the court in Ansan to hold a special two-day session for the students who agreed to testify.

It was the first time the survivors - all from Dawon High School in Ansan city south of Seoul - have given evidence in the trial which began more than a month ago, the French news agency AFP reported.

Names not released

The students' names have not been disclosed and while their evidence was audible in the courtroom, their faces were only visible to the judges and lawyers for the defense and prosecution, according to AFP.

Police cordons blocked public access to the district court in Ansan as the students arrived in a red mini-bus and were escorted into the building by a tight phalanx of police officers.

The surviving crew members, including the captain, face charges ranging from homicide to negligence for abandoning the ship ahead of the passengers. Video footage of their escape triggered outrage across South Korea.

More than 300 people died after the ferry Sewol capsized on a routine trip on April 16, making it one of South Korea's worst civilian maritime disasters. Many of those killed were students from the same school on a class trip.

Only 172 people, including 75 students, were rescued and the rest are presumed to have drowned.

Passengers on board the ferry had been told to stay on board as it was sinking.

The tragedy, and in particular the loss of so many young lives, rocked South Korea with an overwhelming sense of collective shock and grief.

Ferry owner found dead

The trial comes after businessman Yoo Byung-eun, who heads the family that owned the sunken ferry operator, was found dead in June. Last week, the country's forensic agency said it was impossible to determine the cause of death as the body was badly decomposed.

A close associate of Yoo was arrested on Monday. The woman, who was believed to have been instrumental in helping Yoo elude South Korea's largest manhunt, turned herself in on Monday. Police identified her only by her last name, Kim.

Her arrest came three days after police stormed an apartment on the outskirts of Seoul and found Yoo's elder son, Dae-gyun, who was wanted for embezzlement.

Yoo Dae-gyun is one of two sons who co-owned the holding company at the center of a network of business interests that included the ferry operator.

Some information for this report provided by Reuters, AFP and AP.

The Voice of America provides news and information in more than 40 languages to an estimated weekly audience of over 326 million people. Stories with the VOA News byline are the work of multiple VOA journalists and may contain information from wire service reports.

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South Korea's Sewol ferry disaster, a tragedy that traumatised a generation

Issued on: 11/06/2021 - 14:06

On April 16, 2014, the MV Sewol ferry capsized near the southwestern shores of South Korea, with 476 passengers on board, including 325 pupils on a school trip. Very few of them survived because they obeyed the order to stay in their cabins while the ferry was sinking. Beyond the human tragedy, with 304 lives lost, the disaster sparked widespread social and political upheaval in South Korea. Seven years on, FRANCE 24's team reports on how the terrible event has changed the country.

The sinking of the Sewol sparked debate on South Korea 's culture of obedience and hierarchy and led to the emergence of a new generation of young, politically aware South Koreans, known as the Sewol generation. They are not yet 20 years old, but many of them have entered politics and are keen to shake up what they see as an apathetic political class.

FRANCE 24's team reports from Ansan, a city 30 kilometres south of Seoul, which was home to the young victims and where the pain of the disaster remains particularly raw.

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"I felt like my heart stopped"

Updated on: April 16, 2014 / 12:05 PM EDT / CBS/AP

MOKPO, South Korea -- A ferry carrying 462 people, mostly high school students on an overnight trip to a tourist island, sank off South Korea's southern coast on Wednesday, leaving more than 280 people missing despite a frantic, hours-long rescue by dozens of ships and helicopters. At least four people were confirmed dead and 55 injured.

The high number of people unaccounted for - likely trapped in the ship or floating in the ocean - raised fears that the death toll could rise drastically, making it one of South Korea's biggest ferry disasters since 1993, when 292 people died.

CBS News correspondent Seth Doane reports that a U.S. Navy ship was on standby in the area ready to aid the rescue effort.

Hundreds of parents desperately boarded buses to be taken to the area near where the ferry sank.

A mother of an 18-year-old student said, "I felt like my heart stopped. I can't describe the feeling with one word. I can't even talk about it."

One student, Lim Hyung-min, told broadcaster YTN after being rescued that he and other students jumped into the ocean wearing life jackets and then swam to a nearby rescue boat.

"As the ferry was shaking and tilting, we all tripped and bumped into each another," 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 television stations broadcast live pictures of the ship, Sewol, listing to its side and slowly sinking as passengers jumped out or were winched up by helicopters. At least 87 vessels and 18 aircraft swarmed around the stricken ship. Rescuers clambered over its sides, pulling out passengers wearing orange life jackets. But the ship overturned completely and continued to sink slowly. Within a few hours only its blue-and-white bow stuck out of the water.

Some 160 coast guard and navy divers searched for survivors inside the ship's wreckage a few miles from Byeongpung Island, which is not far from the mainland and about 290 miles from Seoul. Cho Man-yong, a coast guard spokesman, said 16 divers approached the ferry Wednesday night but failed to get inside because the current was too strong. He said the water was very muddy and visibility was poor, but navy and coast guard divers planned to make another approach after midnight.

"We cannot give up," said South Korean President Park Geun-hye, after a briefing in Seoul with officials. "We have to do our best to rescue even one passenger."

Those rescued - wet, stunned and many without shoes - were brought to nearby Jindo Island, where medical teams wrapped them in pink blankets and checked them for injuries before settling them down on the floor of a cavernous gymnasium hall.

The ship had set off from Incheon, a city in South Korea's northwest and the site of the country's main international airport, on Tuesday night for an overnight, 14-hour journey to the tourist island of Jeju.

Three hours from its destination, the ferry sent a distress call at about 9 a.m. Wednesday after it began listing to one side, according to the Ministry of Security and Public Administration. Officials didn't know what caused it to sink and said the focus was still on rescuing survivors.

Lee Gyeong-og, a vice minister for South Korea's Public Administration and Security Ministry, said 30 crew members, 325 high school students, 15 school teachers and 89 non-student passengers were aboard the ship.

Authorities said the dead included a female crew member and two male high school students. A coast guard officer confirmed a fourth fatality but had no immediate details about it.

Kang Byung-kyu, a government minister, said 55 people were injured.

Coast guard officials said late Wednesday that they had found one more person who had been unaccounted for - a 5-year-old girl who was staying alone at a hospital after being rescued - raising the number of survivors to 175. A total of 283 people remained missing.

Yonhap news agency said the 480-foot-long ship, which travels twice a week between Incheon and Jeju, was built in Japan in 1994 and could carry a maximum of 921 people, 180 vehicles and 152 shipping containers.

The water temperature in the area was about 54 Fahrenheit, cold enough to cause signs of hypothermia after about 1 1/2 hours of exposure, according to an emergency official who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity citing department rules. Lee, the vice minister, said the ocean is 121 feet deep in the area.

Passenger Kim Seong-mok told YTN that he was certain that many people were trapped inside the ferry as water quickly rushed in and the severe tilt of the vessel kept them from reaching the exits. Some people urged those who couldn't get out to break windows.

Kim said that after having breakfast he felt the ferry tilt and then heard it crash into something. He said the ferry operator made an announcement asking that passengers wait and not move from their places. Kim said he didn't hear any announcement telling passengers to escape.

The students - about half of them boys and half girls- are from Danwon High School in Ansan city, which is near Seoul, and were on their way to Jeju island for a four-day trip, according to a relief team set up by Gyeonggi province, which governs the city. There are faster ways to get to Jeju, but some people take the ferry from Incheon because it is cheaper than flying. Many South Korean high schools organize trips for students in their first or second years, and Jeju is a popular destination. The students on the ferry were in their second year, which would make most of them 16 or 17.

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

Park Ji-hee, a first-year student, said she saw about a dozen parents crying at the school entrance and many cars and taxis gathered at the gate as she left in the morning.

She said some students in her classroom began to cry as they saw the news on their handsets. Teachers tried to soothe them, saying that the students on the ferry would be fine.

The Maritime Ministry said the two previous deadliest ferry disasters were in 1970 when 323 people drowned and in 1993 when 292 people died.

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Survivors of South Korean ferry tragedy struggle with guilt

By Associated Press

ANSAN, South Korea — "Field Trip" is still written in big letters on a calendar hanging on Yang Jeong-won's old classroom wall.

The letters cover four days in April last year and mark one of the highlights of the year — a trip, by ferry, to a southern resort island. The sight still manages to shock Yang, one of the few students to survive a disaster that continues to horrify South Korea.

For many of the second-year high school students, the trip marked a last bit of freedom before nearly two years of grueling preparation for college entrance exams. Teachers and other students waved at them from school windows as 17-year-old Yang and her classmates boarded buses at Danwon High School in the city of Ansan, about an hour's drive south of Seoul.

Girls sang along to loud music and took selfies as they drove to the port of Incheon. Once heavy fog cleared, the Sewol, a 6,852-ton ferry, set off with 476 people on board, including 325 students and 14 teachers from Danwon.

That night, Yang and her classmates threw a surprise birthday party for a beloved teacher, Kim Cho-won, who turned 26 on the ship. A few minutes before midnight, the students lured Kim to a cabin and greeted her with a birthday cake and a happy birthday song and a picture.

Several hours later, on the morning of April 16, 2014, the ferry listed, flipped upside down and sank. More than 300 people died, many of them students trapped in cabins because the crew ordered them to stay put, even as the captain and others jumped on to an early coast guard boat. As the ship listed, Yang smashed into a wall. Students screamed and called their parents, cabinets falling onto them.

Yang, who had on a life jacket, managed to get to an exit and called out to rescuers, who saved her.

Out of 35 people in the birthday photo, she was one of only eight who lived. The teacher, Kim, didn't make it.

A year later, Yang still can't believe what happened to her friends. She's now in her final year of high school, studying design and animation, part of a senior class that shrank from 338 to just 88 students.

"I sometimes wonder if some of the other students are still in the classroom, but no, this is all we have now," she said.

Yang, a freckled, short-haired girl, takes medicine for anxiety. The feeling of the tilting ship still traumatizes her, and when she was on the 11th floor of a hospital last year, she felt like the building was leaning to one side. She grabbed her younger brother's hand and ran down the steps to the first floor.

"If I had known this would happen I would have tried to be better friends with more kids," she said during a two-hour interview with The Associated Press.

She feels guilty about surviving.

"I came out of this alive, but my friends didn't," she said. "I once dreamed that relatives of those who died came to kill the survivors."

Jang Dong-won, the father of another student who was rescued, said that surviving students are still traumatized by memories of their friends during the last minutes of the sinking ship.

"One child missed a friend's hands as the person was swept away by waves," Jang said. "That last glance by the student who couldn't move as a vending machine fell on them."

They also are made to feel guilty by those around them.

"If they smile even just a little bit, they hear, 'How can you smile'" when most of their friends were killed, he said.

The ferry sinking also has dramatically changed the lives of siblings of victims.

After Choi Yun-ah, 24, lost her 17-year-old sister, Yun-min, in the sinking, she quit her office job. She then reached out to other siblings of ferry victims from Danwon. Siblings, she says, often have no one else to turn to because they are afraid of putting more of a burden on their grieving parents.

"Siblings are victims too, but no one in the world knows about it," Choi said. She has made art out of messages from 51 siblings to their dead sisters and brothers.

She has also overcome her previous reticence and become more vocal about the sinking.

"Kids died because they were asked to stay still," Choi said. "If I stay obedient and listen to what grown-ups tell me to do, it will damage me, so I now speak my mind."

After Park Bona's 17-year-old brother died in the ferry, Park stopped caring about the things most other 20-something South Koreans are obsessed with.

"After I lost Seong-ho, working at a big company, graduating from college, making a lot of money — it all became meaningless to me," Park said as she sat in a makeshift church near a memorial altar for the victims. "What does it even mean to get married in a country that can't even protect my brother?"

Park, a 21-year-old who was majoring in Korean language and literature in college, is now preparing to transfer to another university. She wants to help society remember the dead teenagers and to make the country a safer place.

Yang, meanwhile, is still wrestling with why friends who could have been saved had to die.

She feels angry at the ferry operator. The ship became top-heavy after a redesign added more cargo space. She blames the government for not regulating ferry operators more carefully.

Yang is also enraged by the ship's crew, who escaped when students were trapped because they were told to wait inside.

"They should be punished as heavily as possible," she said. "It would be very hard for me to forgive them."

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South Korea ferry disaster survivors describe chaotic scenes

Survivors of Wednesday's ferry accident off the coast of South Korea have described chaotic scenes after the vessel listed and started to sink, possibly after running aground, forcing petrified passengers to jump into the sea before it disappeared beneath the water.

As dozens of boats, helicopters and a team of South Korean navy personnel frantically tried to locate as many as 295 missing passengers before darkness set in, survivors recalled their dramatic escape bids.

Lim Hyung-min, one of a group of 325 high school pupils aboard the Sewol, told the told the YTN network that he had put on a life jacket and jumped into the sea with other pupils, before swimming to a nearby rescue boat.

"As the ferry was shaking and tilting, we all tripped and bumped into each another," Lim said from a gymnasium on a nearby island, where he and other survivors were being treated.

Lim described the sea as "so cold … I was hurrying, thinking that I wanted to live." Some of the other passengers were bleeding, he added.

Photographs from the scene showed soaked pupils, some wrapped in blankets, being treated by emergency workers on the island.

Other survivors said they feared the death toll would rise significantly as they believed dozens of people were still trapped inside the ferry after it listed and then sank into the sea about 20km (12 miles) from the coast of Byungpoong island about two hours after issuing a distress signal.

Kim Seong-mok told YTN he was certain people were trapped inside the ship as water levels quickly rose inside. The vessel's severe tilt prevented many from reaching exits from where they might have been able to leap into the sea to be picked up by rescue boats.

Some people yelled at those who couldn't get out, urging them to break windows, said Kim, who had just eaten breakfast when he felt the ferry tilt and then crash into something.

The ferry operator reportedly asked passengers to stay inside their cabins, Kim said, adding that he had not heard an announcement urging people to leave the ship before it sank.

"There was a bang and then the ship suddenly tilted over," Yonhap quoted a 57-year-old survivor as saying. "Downstairs were restaurants, shops and entertainment rooms, and those who were there are feared to have failed to escape."

The chances of surviving for long in the sea were slim. The temperature in the sea separating the South Korean mainland from a string of islands off its south-west coast was about 12C on Wednesday – cold enough to bring on symptoms of hypothermia after 90 minutes to two hours, according to a rescue worker quoted by Associated Press.

Navy divers trying to locate people still trapped inside the ship were frustrated by poor visibility created by mud stirred up from the seabed.

The pupils and their teachers, from Danwon high school in the Seoul suburb of Ansan, were travelling to Jeju island for a four-day study trip, along with about 150 other passengers, when the accident occurred.

The Sewol sent out a distress signal shortly before 9am local time. The 6,825-ton vessel had been en route from the western port of Incheon to Jeju, located about 100km (60 miles) off the mainland, when it reportedly hit rocks and began listing severely.

Pupils at the school were sent home early as distraught parents arrived seeking information about their children. Others rushed to ports in the country's south-west after receiving calls from their children confirming they were safe. One pupil said she saw several parents in tears as she left the school. Children who had not joined the trip started crying as news of the accident came through on their mobile phones, reports said.

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The Two-Way

International, rescue crews dive for hundreds still missing after ferry accident.

Mark Memmott

On 'Morning Edition': NPR's Anthony Kuhn reports about the ferry accident

This post is being updated as news comes in..

Unsuccessful in their attempts to find the missing in a sunken ferry off the southern coast of South Korea overnight, rescue divers resumed their search at day break Thursday, Jason Strother reports from Seoul.

A day after the boat began to sink, the cause of the accident is unclear and less than half of the passengers who were on board have been rescued, Strother tells NPR's Newscast Desk.

Most of those unaccounted for are high school students who were on a trip to a resort island.

The ship, which left the city of Incheon on South Korea's western coast Tuesday night, sent out a distress signal around 9 a.m. local time on Wednesday. That was 8 p.m. ET Tuesday. The trip south to Jeju Island was supposed to take about 14 hours. According to The Associated Press , the students and teachers are from a high school in Ansan city near Seoul.

Update at 12:15 p.m. ET, Nov. 20, 2014: The Sea of Japan is also known as the East Sea.

Credit: Aly Hurt/NPR

By the time rescuers arrived on the scene, the ferry — the Sewol — was on its side. After about two hours, according to NPR's Anthony Kuhn, the ship had turned over completely and most of it was underwater. Anthony, who is monitoring the news from Beijing, said on Morning Edition that authorities believe about 475 people were on board before the ferry went down. It was well below capacity: According to Anthony, the ship can carry as many as 900 passengers.

After midnight Thursday in Korea (late morning in the eastern U.S.), Reuters was reporting that authorities had slightly revised some of the numbers:

-- 475 people were thought to have been on board.

-- 179 were reported to have been rescued.

-- Six bodies had been recovered.

-- 290 people were still unaccounted for. (Updated figures added at 4:45 p.m. ET.)

South Korea's Yonhap News Agency reports that "fears have grown that many of those unaccounted for could be trapped inside the sunken ship and died."

Of those on board, CNN says , 325 were students and 15 were teachers from Seoul's Ansan Danwon High School. Jeju, the network adds, is "considered the Hawaii of Korea." (Update from CNN added at 9:30 a.m. ET.)

The island is a honeymoon destination and "one of the most popular vacation spots" for Koreans, Seoul-based journalist Jason Strother told All Things Considered Wednesday morning in a conversation recorded for broadcast later today .

NPR's Frank Langfitt, who is following the news from Shanghai, tells our Newscast Desk that South Korea's coast guard reports it rescued at least 164 people before the ferry sank. The water temperature in the area is just above 50 degrees Fahrenheit, Frank reports, and "South Korean authorities say people swimming in water at that temperature show signs of hypothermia after 90 minutes or two hours."

A U.S. Navy ship is heading to the site to assist South Korean rescuers.

According to Yonhap News:

"The cause of the accident was not known, though survivors said they heard a banging noise before the ship suddenly started sinking. Speculation has arisen that the ship might have hit an underwater rock or collided with another vessel. ... "The ship, which plies between Incheon and Jeju [Island] twice a week, was built in Japan in 1994, is 146 meter long and 22 meter wide, and has the maximum capacity of carrying 921 people, 180 vehicles and 152 shipping containers at the same time."

One survivor, according to Reuters , said she was on the ferry's deck when "the ship went 'boom' and there was a noise of cargo falling." Cha Eun-ok said there was an announcement that "told people to stay put." She fears that "people who stayed are trapped." (Update from Reuters added at 10:50 a.m. ET.)

According to The Wall Street Journal , "the ill-fated Sewol — its name means 'time and tide' in Korean — is 145 meters long [476 feet] and 22 meters wide [72 feet]. It can carry 921 passengers, 180 vehicles and 152 regular cargo containers at the same time. ... The 6,825-ton ferry travels twice a week between the western port of Incheon and the southern resort island of Jeju. The 264-mile trip is one of the most lucrative and common ferry lines in the country."

The Journal writes that Apostolos Papanikolaou, director of the ship design laboratory at the National Technical University of Athens, "said ships such as the Sewol are engineered to withstand flooding of two of about 15 below-deck compartments. Anything beyond that would result in the ship sinking, he said. ... This assumes all watertight doors are shut. In practice, they are often left open to allow movement of crew members between different sections of the ship. ... Mr. Papanikolaou said once water rises to the large open surfaces on the upper decks, where sometimes cars are kept, then the ship can capsize "very quickly." (Update from the Journal added at 12:15 p.m. ET.)

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School bus crash kills 11 and injures dozens in Indonesia

At least 11 people have been killed and dozens more injured when a bus carrying high school students on a graduation trip crashed on the Indonesian island of Java.

The bus was carrying more than 60 students and teachers from the town of Depok to Lembang, a popular tourist spot, when it crashed at 6:48pm, local time, on Saturday.

The students had just celebrated their graduation and were on a school trip when the bus suddenly lost control and tilted to the left, crashing into a car and three motorbikes, West Java province police spokesman Jules Abraham Abast said on Sunday.

"Out of the passengers who died, nine of them were students, and one of them was a teacher," Mr Abast said.

The accident also killed one motorcyclist, seriously injured 13 people and caused minor injuries to 40 others, he added.

Local traffic police chief Undang Syarif Hidayat told broadcaster Kompas he suspected the bus's brake malfunctioned before the crash, but Mr Abast said police were still investigating the cause of the accident.

Deadly traffic accidents are common in Indonesia, where vehicles are often old or poorly maintained, and road rules are routinely ignored.

Last month, at least 12 people were killed when a car crashed into a bus and another car on a busy highway in West Java as people travelled to celebrate Eid-al-Fitr with relatives at the end of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.

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