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- Posted: Wed, 23 Apr 2014 10:57:46 +0000
Classes begin at SKorean school full of mourning
Students in the city hit hardest by the South Korean ferry disaster returned to classes Thursday, their school campus a tragic landscape of yellow ribbons, chrysanthemums and photos of classmates and teachers who make up the vast majority of the more than 300 people feared dead.
Danwon High School was at times the site of even more direct grieving, as relatives in funeral processions visited their loved ones' classrooms before moving on to cremate the body. Education officials said the first two days of classes will focus on helping students cope with losses and trauma, with help from psychiatrists and professional counselors.
Nearby at Olympic Memorial Museum, a flower-strewn temporary memorial to the approximately 250 students dead or missing drew a stream of black-clad mourners.
"I am very sad, but at the same time, I also feel resentful and angry," said businessman Lee Dong-geun. When "I entered, I saw the faces of those students and could not fight back my tears."
So far 159 bodies have been pulled from the water, with 143 people still missing. Hundreds of divers are working to retrieve the remaining bodies.
Looking in Cabins now
As the ferry sank, some crew members gave their lifejackets to passengers. One refused to leave until she shepherded students off the ship, and was later found dead. Others worked from rescue boats to break windows with hammers and pull people trapped in cabins to safety.
Nearly a week after the sinking of the South Korean ferry, with rising outrage over a death count that could eventually top 300, the public verdict against the crew of the Sewol has been savage and quick. "Cowards!" social media users howled. "Unforgivable, murderous," President Park Geun-hye said Monday of the captain and some crew.
Some fled the ferry, including the captain, but not all. At least seven of the 29 crew members are missing or dead, and several of those who survived stayed on or near the ship to help passengers.
"His last words were, 'I'm on my way to save the kids,'" Ahn So-hyun told reporters of what her husband, missing crew member Yang Dae-hong, told her by cellphone as the ship began to sink Wednesday. He was referring to the 323 high school students on the ferry, which was carrying a total of 476 people.
More than 100 people are confirmed dead and nearly 200 more are still missing. Relatives, as well as many other South Koreans, are enraged, lashing out at what they see as a botched rescue operation and, most vehemently, at the captain. He and two crew members have been arrested, accused of negligence and abandoning people in need. Six other crew members have been detained — two of them on Tuesday — though prosecutors have yet to obtain arrest warrants for them.
Captain Lee Joon-seok told passengers to stay in their cabins as the ferry listed and filled with water, then took at least half an hour to order an evacuation and apparently escaped on one of the first rescue boats.
But passengers recall moments of quiet bravery from the crew.
Passenger Koo Bon-hee, 36, told The Associated Press that there were not enough life jackets for everyone in the area on the third floor where he and others waited. So crew members — two men and two women — didn't wear any so that all the passengers could have one.
One of the first bodies recovered after the ferry sank was 22-year-old crew member Park Ji-young, who helped students evacuate until the last minute, even though she wasn't wearing a life vest, South Korean media reported. Witnesses told Yonhap news agency that she told students that crew members must stay on the ship until everyone else leaves, and that she would follow them after helping passengers.
Crew members describe a rending dilemma as the ship went down. The late evacuation order meant that by the time the crew got off the bridge, the tilt of the ship was so great they could barely walk, let alone rescue passengers. Should they flee the sinking ship or risk their lives to save others trapped below?
Oh Yong-seok, a 57-year-old helmsman, said he and four crew members worked from nearby boats to smash windows on the sinking ferry, dragging six passengers stuck in cabins to safety.
Oh said that a first mate — who is detained — used his knowledge of the ship's layout to help direct rescuers as they worked to pull passengers off onto rescue boats. He said he and his colleagues remained at sea trying to help until an official who appeared to be from the coast guard asked them to head to land.
more here
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Lee and eight members of his crew have been arrested on suspicion of negligence and abandoning people in need. On Saturday, the handcuffed captain was paraded before flashing cameras, his face hidden beneath the dark hood of a windbreaker. He brusquely denied fleeing the ship, without elaborating, and said he delayed evacuation because of worries about sending passengers into cold waters and fast currents before rescuers arrived.
The fall from grace stands in stark contrast to Lee's striking portrayal, in interviews given to local media over the last decade, of a resilient and adventurous life spent at sea. It gives a chilling irony to his appearance on a 2010 travel show aired on cable broadcaster OBS, where he captained the Ohamana, another ferry that traveled the same Incheon-to-Jeju route plied by the Sewol.
"For those who are using our Incheon-to-Jeju ferry, I can tell you that the next time you return, it will be a safe and pleasant" experience, Lee said, dressed in a white captain's uniform with gold epaulets on the shoulders. "If you follow the instructions of our crew members, it will be safer than any other means of transportation."
Lee, 68, began his life at sea by chance, landing a job on a ship in his mid-20s. He worked on ocean freighters for the next 20 years before becoming a ferry captain, he said in a 2004 interview with Jeju Today, a Web-based news organization. He was then captain of another Incheon-to-Jeju ferry.
"The first ship I sailed on was a hardwood ship that flipped over in waters near Okinawa, Japan. The Japanese Self-Defense Forces saved me with their helicopters," Lee recalled. "If I hadn't been saved then, I wouldn't be here today."
Lee said there were times he thought about giving up sailing.
Ferry
There is more to the story.
Students in the city hit hardest by the South Korean ferry disaster returned to classes Thursday, their school campus a tragic landscape of yellow ribbons, chrysanthemums and photos of classmates and teachers who make up the vast majority of the more than 300 people feared dead.
Danwon High School was at times the site of even more direct grieving, as relatives in funeral processions visited their loved ones' classrooms before moving on to cremate the body. Education officials said the first two days of classes will focus on helping students cope with losses and trauma, with help from psychiatrists and professional counselors.
Nearby at Olympic Memorial Museum, a flower-strewn temporary memorial to the approximately 250 students dead or missing drew a stream of black-clad mourners.
"I am very sad, but at the same time, I also feel resentful and angry," said businessman Lee Dong-geun. When "I entered, I saw the faces of those students and could not fight back my tears."
So far 159 bodies have been pulled from the water, with 143 people still missing. Hundreds of divers are working to retrieve the remaining bodies.
Looking in Cabins now
As the ferry sank, some crew members gave their lifejackets to passengers. One refused to leave until she shepherded students off the ship, and was later found dead. Others worked from rescue boats to break windows with hammers and pull people trapped in cabins to safety.
Nearly a week after the sinking of the South Korean ferry, with rising outrage over a death count that could eventually top 300, the public verdict against the crew of the Sewol has been savage and quick. "Cowards!" social media users howled. "Unforgivable, murderous," President Park Geun-hye said Monday of the captain and some crew.
Some fled the ferry, including the captain, but not all. At least seven of the 29 crew members are missing or dead, and several of those who survived stayed on or near the ship to help passengers.
"His last words were, 'I'm on my way to save the kids,'" Ahn So-hyun told reporters of what her husband, missing crew member Yang Dae-hong, told her by cellphone as the ship began to sink Wednesday. He was referring to the 323 high school students on the ferry, which was carrying a total of 476 people.
More than 100 people are confirmed dead and nearly 200 more are still missing. Relatives, as well as many other South Koreans, are enraged, lashing out at what they see as a botched rescue operation and, most vehemently, at the captain. He and two crew members have been arrested, accused of negligence and abandoning people in need. Six other crew members have been detained — two of them on Tuesday — though prosecutors have yet to obtain arrest warrants for them.
Captain Lee Joon-seok told passengers to stay in their cabins as the ferry listed and filled with water, then took at least half an hour to order an evacuation and apparently escaped on one of the first rescue boats.
But passengers recall moments of quiet bravery from the crew.
Passenger Koo Bon-hee, 36, told The Associated Press that there were not enough life jackets for everyone in the area on the third floor where he and others waited. So crew members — two men and two women — didn't wear any so that all the passengers could have one.
One of the first bodies recovered after the ferry sank was 22-year-old crew member Park Ji-young, who helped students evacuate until the last minute, even though she wasn't wearing a life vest, South Korean media reported. Witnesses told Yonhap news agency that she told students that crew members must stay on the ship until everyone else leaves, and that she would follow them after helping passengers.
Crew members describe a rending dilemma as the ship went down. The late evacuation order meant that by the time the crew got off the bridge, the tilt of the ship was so great they could barely walk, let alone rescue passengers. Should they flee the sinking ship or risk their lives to save others trapped below?
Oh Yong-seok, a 57-year-old helmsman, said he and four crew members worked from nearby boats to smash windows on the sinking ferry, dragging six passengers stuck in cabins to safety.
Oh said that a first mate — who is detained — used his knowledge of the ship's layout to help direct rescuers as they worked to pull passengers off onto rescue boats. He said he and his colleagues remained at sea trying to help until an official who appeared to be from the coast guard asked them to head to land.
more here
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Lee and eight members of his crew have been arrested on suspicion of negligence and abandoning people in need. On Saturday, the handcuffed captain was paraded before flashing cameras, his face hidden beneath the dark hood of a windbreaker. He brusquely denied fleeing the ship, without elaborating, and said he delayed evacuation because of worries about sending passengers into cold waters and fast currents before rescuers arrived.
The fall from grace stands in stark contrast to Lee's striking portrayal, in interviews given to local media over the last decade, of a resilient and adventurous life spent at sea. It gives a chilling irony to his appearance on a 2010 travel show aired on cable broadcaster OBS, where he captained the Ohamana, another ferry that traveled the same Incheon-to-Jeju route plied by the Sewol.
"For those who are using our Incheon-to-Jeju ferry, I can tell you that the next time you return, it will be a safe and pleasant" experience, Lee said, dressed in a white captain's uniform with gold epaulets on the shoulders. "If you follow the instructions of our crew members, it will be safer than any other means of transportation."
Lee, 68, began his life at sea by chance, landing a job on a ship in his mid-20s. He worked on ocean freighters for the next 20 years before becoming a ferry captain, he said in a 2004 interview with Jeju Today, a Web-based news organization. He was then captain of another Incheon-to-Jeju ferry.
"The first ship I sailed on was a hardwood ship that flipped over in waters near Okinawa, Japan. The Japanese Self-Defense Forces saved me with their helicopters," Lee recalled. "If I hadn't been saved then, I wouldn't be here today."
Lee said there were times he thought about giving up sailing.
Ferry
There is more to the story.
