MOSCOW, April 18 (RIA Novosti) – Twenty-eight people are now confirmed to have died and 271 remain missing after a South Korean ferry capsized and sank on Wednesday, CNN reported Friday citing official information.
According to the Seoul Herald, coast guards and navy rescuers retrieved 17 additional bodies overnight. Among them were eight students and a second crew member. The boat was carrying over 300 students on a field trip at the time of the sinking.
A 16-year-old Russian boy is also reported to be missing, the Russian Foreign Ministry said on its website Thursday. The Russian embassy in Seoul said Korean police and rescuers were aiding its investigation into the teenager’s whereabouts and that it remains in close contact with his parents and relatives.
The ship was travelling from the northwestern city of Incheon to the southern island of Jeju when it suddenly listed at a sharp angle and started taking on water.
The vessel, named Sewol, remains completely submerged. A part of its hull that could still be seen Thursday is now covered by water. Some of the missing passengers may still be trapped inside. Hopes are they are surviving in pockets of air within the ship, but rescuers fear their lives will be put in more danger once they try to refloat it.
Reporters at the scene say air is now being pumped into the sunken ship to both keep possible survivors alive and salvage the vessel.
Some of those who made it to the shore accuse the crew of telling them to stay inside when the vessel was already sinking.
Koo Bon-hee, a 36-year-old passenger from Sewol, told the Associated Press lives could have been saved if the people onboard hadn’t been told to stay in.
“We were wearing life jackets, we had time," he said. "If people had jumped into the water ... they could have been rescued. But we were told not to go out.”
Another survivor said in an interview with AP he saw a number of people trapped in hallways as they were striving to leave the vessel. But cold water was already filling up the narrow passageways and a sharp tilt prevented passengers from reaching the exit.
Lim Hyung-min, one of the 325 Danwon High School students who were on a field trip to Jeju, described how the ship was shaking and tilting, and his friends were all scrambling to the upper deck and jumping into ice-cold water wearing life jackets. Some of the passengers were bleeding, he said.
Park Ji-young, a 22-year-old member of the crew, lost her life while saving passengers. She was trapped in a hallway as it filled with water after she brought people to safety on the upper deck. One of the passengers reportedly asked her to put a life jacket on, to which the woman replied she would think of herself once she had made sure all the people on board were out.
The severe tilt made it impossible for many to leave the ship. A survivor also said the ship’s thick windows were extremely hard to break and trapped people inside while water rushed into the ship.
The rescue operation is still under way, 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.
