The South Korean government is liable for the botched rescue of more than 300 people, mostly schoolchildren, who drowned when their overloaded ferry sank, a court ruled yesterday, ordering the state to compensate relatives.
In a landmark ruling, the Seoul Central District Court awarded the next of kin of each deceased passenger from the Sewol ferry 200 million won (US$177,000), a further 40 million won for each of their parents, and smaller sums for other relatives.
The vast majority of the victims of the 2014 sinking off the southwestern coast, one of the country’s worst maritime disasters, were high-school students on an excursion and the sinking dealt a crushing blow to now-ousted South Korean president Park Geun-hye.
Photo: EPA
As the 6,800-tonne boat was taking on water, the passengers were told by the crew to stay put, while the captain and his colleagues were first to leave the vessel.
Skipper Lee Jun-seok was later sentenced to life in prison and 14 other crew members up to 12 years for their actions.
A coast guard patrol boat commander was also jailed for four years for failing to alert passengers to imminent danger.
“The commander failed to carry out his duty to protect the lives of people, leaving the passengers waiting for help without knowing the situation,” the court said.
“The victims’ relatives are still suffering from post-traumatic stress,” it said.
Ferry operator Cheonghaejin was equally liable, the court said, and was ordered to share the costs.
Investigations concluded the disaster was the result of numerous human factors, including an illegal redesign, an overloaded cargo bay and inexperienced crew.
The government previously offered the students’ families 470 million won each, but relatives of 116 students and two other passengers refused the compensation and took it to court, seeking about 1 billion won for each victim and a declaration the state was liable.
Packed crowds in India celebrating their cricket team’s victory ended in a deadly stampede on Wednesday, with 11 mainly young fans crushed to death, the local state’s chief minister said. Joyous cricket fans had come out to celebrate and welcome home their heroes, Royal Challengers Bengaluru, after they beat Punjab Kings in a roller-coaster Indian Premier League (IPL) cricket final on Tuesday night. However, the euphoria of the vast crowds in the southern tech city of Bengaluru ended in disaster, with Indian Prime Minister Narendra calling it “absolutely heartrending.” Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said most of the deceased are young, with 11 dead
By 2027, Denmark would relocate its foreign convicts to a prison in Kosovo under a 200-million-euro (US$228.6 million) agreement that has raised concerns among non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and residents, but which could serve as a model for the rest of the EU. The agreement, reached in 2022 and ratified by Kosovar lawmakers last year, provides for the reception of up to 300 foreign prisoners sentenced in Denmark. They must not have been convicted of terrorism or war crimes, or have a mental condition or terminal disease. Once their sentence is completed in Kosovan, they would be deported to their home country. In
Brazil, the world’s largest Roman Catholic country, saw its Catholic population decline further in 2022, while evangelical Christians and those with no religion continued to rise, census data released on Friday by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) showed. The census indicated that Brazil had 100.2 million Roman Catholics in 2022, accounting for 56.7 percent of the population, down from 65.1 percent or 105.4 million recorded in the 2010 census. Meanwhile, the share of evangelical Christians rose to 26.9 percent last year, up from 21.6 percent in 2010, adding 12 million followers to reach 47.4 million — the highest figure
LOST CONTACT: The mission carried payloads from Japan, the US and Taiwan’s National Central University, including a deep space radiation probe, ispace said Japanese company ispace said its uncrewed moon lander likely crashed onto the moon’s surface during its lunar touchdown attempt yesterday, marking another failure two years after its unsuccessful inaugural mission. Tokyo-based ispace had hoped to join US firms Intuitive Machines and Firefly Aerospace as companies that have accomplished commercial landings amid a global race for the moon, which includes state-run missions from China and India. A successful mission would have made ispace the first company outside the US to achieve a moon landing. Resilience, ispace’s second lunar lander, could not decelerate fast enough as it approached the moon, and the company has