South Korea yesterday remembered the 304 people, most of them schoolchildren, who died on the Sewol ferry on the 10th anniversary of its sinking, with families calling for a proper apology for the unnecessary deaths of their loved ones.
Many parents attended a memorial service in the city of Ansan, home of the 250 children who died on the ferry during a school excursion, while another 37 family members boarded a coast guard ship that sailed to the scene of the disaster, marked by a lone buoy, and held a memorial at sea.
“Every single day of the 10 years has been painful, unbearable time,” Kim Jong-gi, who lost his daughter Soo-jin, said at the memorial, adding that those responsible for the disaster had yet to be held accountable.
Photo: Reuters
On the morning of April 16, 2014, the Sewol sank with 476 passengers and crew on board. Of the 304 people killed, 250 were students from the Danwon High School in Ansan.
The scenes of the 6,800-tonne vessel sinking on live TV stunned the country. Disbelief turned to outrage as it emerged the captain and crew had abandoned the ship, and that the children were told to stay in the cabin and wait for rescue.
Rescuers were slow to arrive and were largely ineffective when they got there. Coast guard officials were put on trial for negligence, but they were acquitted.
Photo: Reuters
Investigations found that the ship’s structure had been illegally modified and that it had been overloaded. When it went into a turn, the vessel’s speed and load caused it to capsize.
The captain is serving a life sentence and other members of the crew are also in jail. No one else has been prosecuted, an issue of contention for the victims’ families a decade on.
South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol offered his condolences.
“May the victims rest in peace, and I offer my deep condolences to the bereaved families,” he said.
Memorials were held throughout the country, including at the port of Mokpo in the south, where the wreckage of the Sewol is on display.
Over the years, some parents have staged plays to remember their children and cope with their grief, which some have likened to the loss faced by the families of the 159 mostly young people who died in a Halloween day crush two years ago.
Others continue to search for justice, and closure.
There have been a number of investigations and inquiries into the disaster, but the families say none have provided the answers they are seeking.
“Our demand is very simple. Accept responsibility, apologize and promise disasters like this won’t ever happen again,” said Park Seung-ryul, who leads an alliance of civic groups working to help the victims’ families’ search for justice.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
RSS