Lawmaker: SK ferry carrying far too much cargo
Print Edition
ANGRY relatives of some of the more than 120 people still missing from the sinking of the ferry Sewol surrounded South Korea’s fisheries minister and coast guard chief yesterday, preventing them from leaving the area where families have been waiting for word of their loved ones for more than a week.
It was the latest expression of fury and desperation in a disaster filled with signs that the government did too little to protect passengers. An opposition politician said he has a document showing that the ferry was carrying far more cargo than it should have been.
Relatives of the missing passengers surrounded Oceans and Fisheries Minister Lee Ju-young, coast guard chief Kim Seok-kyun and deputy chief Choi Sang-hwan. The men sat on the ground under a tent where details about the recovered dead — now numbering 175 — are posted.
Accused of lying
Family members shouted at the officials, accusing them of lying about the operation, demanding the search continue at night and asking why hundreds of civilian divers were not allowed to join coast guard and navy personnel in the search.
“We are doing our work and feel the way you do,” Kim said.
About 700 divers are working at the site of the April 16 wreck, said Koh Myung-seok, spokesman for the emergency task force. He said civilian divers had slowed down the operation.
Many relatives believe some of the victims may have survived for several days in trapped air pockets, but perished in the cold water after no rescue came.
As a result, some have asked for autopsies to be performed, to see if it would be possible to determine the precise cause and time of death.
Eleven crew, including the captain, have been arrested on suspicion of negligence and abandoning people in need as the ferry sank on its way from Incheon port to southern island Jeju. Warrants were issued against four crew yesterday.
The cause of the disaster is not yet known, but prosecutors are considering factors including a sharp turn, wind, currents, modifications to the ship and the cargo it was carrying.
Not even aware
Lawmaker Kim Yung-rok of the New Politics Alliance for Democracy said he has documents from the Korean Register of Shipping that show the Sewol was carrying more than three and a half times more cargo than regulators allowed.
Officials with South Korea’s maritime ministry and coast guard said they were not even aware of the Sewol’s cargo capacity, saying it was the Korea Shipping Association’s job to oversee it. The association is partly funded by the industry.
Meanwhile, it emerged that a boy and girl trapped in the ferry tied their life jacket cords together, a diver who recovered their bodies said, presumably so they wouldn’t float apart.
“I started to cry thinking that they didn’t want to leave each other,” he told the Kyunghyang Shinmun newspaper.
Of 476 people on the Sewol, 325 were students from Danwon High School, south of Seoul.
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