TOKYO, April 17 (RIA Novosti) – The confirmed death toll from a ferry that capsized off the coast of South Korea earlier this week has risen to nine and nearly 300 passengers are still missing, the Kyodo news agency reported Thursday citing official information.
The passenger ferry Sewol, carrying students and teachers on a field trip, sank off the coast of South Korea on Wednesday after departing South Korea’s northwestern town of Incheon on its way to the southern island of Jeju.
According to data from the South Korean government, nine people are confirmed dead and 287 are still missing, the agency reported.
Among the missing is Russian citizen Vyacheslav Serkov, who was one of the about 470 people on board the ferry when it sank.
The rescue operation is still under way, with 174 people having been saved, according to Agence France-Presse. Over 170 coastguard ships and naval vessels, as well as 550 divers, are taking part in the operation.
The South Korea ferry capsized almost exactly 102 years after the Titanic disaster. The UK transoceanic liner sank in the North Atlantic Ocean on April 15, 1912 after colliding with an iceberg, leading to the deaths of more than 1,500 people.
