Divers spotted bodies inside the sunken ferry Saturday as search efforts for hundreds missing continued for a fourth day. Thirty-two people have been confirmed dead in the disaster in waters off the nation’s southwestern coast and 270 are still missing. Most of them are children on a high school holiday trip.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 b

The vice principal of Danwon High School in Ansan, Gyeonggi Province, was found dead in an apparent suicide on Friday, two days after hundreds of his students died or went missing in a ferry disaster. The 52-year-old vice principal, surnamed Kang, apparently hanged himself close to a gymnasium in Jindo, South Jeolla Province, where a disaster information center was set up for the families of the victims.The police had been searching for Kang since other teachers told the police on Thursday that

As hours pass with no more survivors found, anxious families lash out at government

As pessimism loomed over search-and-rescue operations for possible survivors on the Sewol on Friday, criticism mounted over the government’s response to the fatal incident.The families of the victims who lost their lives or went missing on the Sewol blasted the government for allegedly inflating the number of rescuers, and begged for more efforts to save the more than 200 people who are still unaccounted for. “On Thursday, we finally visited the scene but we saw fewer than 200 people working on

The families of the victims who lost their lives or went missing on the Sewol issued a statement in Jindo on Friday, calling for stepped-up search and rescue efforts.The following is the full text of the statement: We would like to appeal with tears to rest of the public as we feel furious at the government’s behavior. We received the shocking news at 9 a.m. Wednesday and heard that everyone was rescued at noon. We came here to see the children, but the actual situation left us speechless. At 5:

More stories of people who struggled to save others in Wednesday’s ferry tragedy emerged Friday. A 6-year-old boy surnamed Kwon put his lifejacket on his 5-year-old sister as the ferry Sewol went down. “He told his sister that he would go and find their parents,” the boy’s aunt said.Kwon and his parents remain missing, and the girl is being looked after by her grandmother. Nam Yun-cheol, a 36-year-old teacher of Danwon High School, died while trying to rescue his students from the vessel. As the

(Yonhap)A student once listed as a survivor turned out on Friday to be one of the missing passengers, escalating the criticism over the government’s initial handling of the ferry disaster in waters off Korea’s southwestern coast.The father of Moon Ji-sung expressed his anger over the erroneous list of survivors during his phone call with President Park Geun-hye on Friday morning, Cheong Wa Dae said.The president obtained his mobile phone number when she visited the families of the victims in Jin

A civilian diver claimed Friday that the government is not providing sufficient equipment and boats needed for search-and-rescue operations of sunken ferry Sewol.Hong Ga-hye, who arrived late Thursday to participate in the operation, told the media the authorities are stopping the divers from entering the waters. She said that contrary to the recent reports, cooperation between the government and the volunteers have been nonexistent.“Other divers told me that the Coast Guard told them to ‘just k

Anxious relatives vent frustration as time runs out

(Blommberg)Investigative authorities said Friday that the captain of the sunken ferry Sewol gave the wheel to a third mate before the vessel began sinking.Prosecutors and the police have been conducting an inquiry into the exact cause of the ship’s sinking. "We have confirmed that the captain of the Sewol left the wheel to a third mate before the ship began sinking," chief investigator Park Jae-eok said as he announced the interim results of the investigation at the West Regional Headquarters. "

Rescuers entered the interior of the sunken ferry Sewol on Friday, the third day of their frantic search for survivors.Navy divers first secured a route for their fellow divers to enter the ship’s dining facility, where many of the victims were thought to have been trapped. They plan to begin their search of the dinning room at 3 p.m.Rescuers also succeeded in injecting air into the ship to help possible survivors breathe.Military personnel also installed buoys to keep the ship afloat, officials

Prime Minister Chung Hong-won is to stay at a police facility in Mokpo, South Jeolla Province, from Friday to ensure sufficient state support for the rescue operations at the scene of the ferry disaster and improve inter-agency coordination.The dispatch of a top government official came as the families of victims expressed their anger at what they called “insufficient” government assistance in rescuing nearly 300 people who died or went missing.A day earlier, President Park Geun-hye visited the

Four giant cranes arrived Friday in the scene to help pull up the sunken ferry in Jindo, South Jeolla Province, officials said. Three massive cranes were on standby at the scene until another crane arrived in the afternoon. The salvage operation to pull the ferry out of the waters will not be carried out without the consent of the families of the missing people, officials said. Any mishandling of the ship could lead to a loss of oxygen, which is critical for potential survivors, they added. The

A video footage that shows the sinking process of the Sewol was released on Youtube on Thursday.The brief, 46-second video clip shows a cracked smartphone screen playing footage, apparently recorded by a trapped passenger, showing the circumstances onboard the sinking ferry.The footage reveals the tilted interior of the vessel and the voices of the passengers. One of the passengers, allegedly the recorder of the footage, asks another female passenger “what time is it now?” But before she checks

A joint investigation team of prosecutors and police on Friday raided the office of Chonghaejin Marine Co., the owner and operator of the Sewol ferry that sank Wednesday.Computer files and documents related to the ferry were procured by some 10 officials at the office in Incheon. The raid kicked off the probe into allegations that the Sewol took an alternative route on its fateful journey from Incheon to Jeju, and whether human error affected the accident, which took lives of 25 as of 10 a.m. Fr