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| South Korean navy personnel try to install buoys to mark the sunken passenger ship Sewol in the water off the southern coast near Jindo, South Korea, Friday, April 18, 2014. Rescuers scrambled to find hundreds of ferry passengers still missing Friday and feared dead, as fresh questions emerged about whether quicker action by the captain of the doomed ship could have saved lives. |
MOKPO, South
Korea (AP) -- The captain of a sunken South Korean ferry was
arrested Saturday on suspicion of negligence and abandoning people in
need, as investigators looked into whether his evacuation order came too
late to save lives. Two crew members were also arrested, a prosecutor
said.
The disaster three days ago left more than 270 people missing and at least 29 people dead.
As
the last bit of the sunken ferry's hull slipped Friday beneath the
murky water off southern South Korea, there was a new victim: a vice
principal of the high school whose students were among the passengers
was found hanged, an apparent suicide.
The
Sewol had left the northwestern port of Incheon on Tuesday on an
overnight journey to the holiday island of Jeju in the south with 476
people aboard, including 323 students from Danwon High School in Ansan.
It capsized within hours of the crew making a distress call to the shore
a little before 9 a.m. Wednesday.
Only its
dark blue keel jutted out over the surface. But by Friday night, even
that had disappeared, and rescuers set two giant beige buoys to mark the
area. Navy divers attached underwater air bags to the 6,852-ton ferry
to prevent it from sinking deeper, the Defense Ministry said.
The coast guard said divers began pumping air into the ship to try to sustain any survivors.
Strong
currents and rain made it difficult to get inside the ferry. Divers
worked in shifts to try to get into the vessel, where most of the
passengers were believed to have been trapped when it sank, coast guard
spokesman Kim Jae-in said.
Investigators said
the accident came at a point where the ship had to make a turn, and
prosecutor Park Jae-eok said investigators were looking at whether the
third mate ordered a turn that was so sharp that it caused the vessel to
list.
The sharp turn came between 8:48 a.m.
and 8:49 a.m., but it's not known whether it was done voluntarily or
because of some external factor, said Nam Jae-heon, a spokesman for the
Maritime Ministry.
Another angle being probed is the role of the captain, 68-year-old Lee Joon-seok.
Senior
prosecutor Yang Jung-jin said Lee was detained early Saturday, along
with the two crew members. Lee faces five charges including negligence
of duty and violation of maritime law, according to the Yonhap news
agency.
Yang said earlier that Lee was not on
the bridge when the ferry was passing through an area with many islands
clustered closely together, something he said is required by law so the
captain can help a mate make a turn. The captain also abandoned people
in need of help and rescue, he said.
"The captain escaped before the passengers," Yang said.
Two
crewmembers on the bridge of the ferry - a 25-year-old woman and a
55-year-old helmsman - also failed to reduce speed near the islands and
conducted a sharp turn, Yang said. They also did not carry out necessary
measures to save lives, he said.
Another focus of the investigation is that a quicker evacuation order by the captain could have saved lives.
Police
said the vice principal who was found hanged from a tree on Jindo, an
island near the sunken ship where survivors have been housed, had been
rescued from the ferry.
Identified as Kang
Min-kyu, he was the leader of the students traveling on a school
excursion. In his suicide note, Kang said he felt guilty for surviving
and wanted to take responsibility for what happened because he had led
the trip, according to police.
He asked that his body be cremated and the ashes scattered where the ferry went down.
With
only 174 survivors from the 476 aboard and the chances of survival
becoming slimmer by the hour, it was shaping up to be one of South
Korea's worst disasters, made all the more heartbreaking by the likely
loss of so many young people, aged 16 or 17.
The toll rose to 29 after the body of a woman was recovered, authorities said early Saturday.
The country's last major ferry disaster was in 1993, when 292 people were killed.
A
transcript of a ship-to-shore radio exchange and interviews by The
Associated Press showed the captain delayed the evacuation for half an
hour after a South Korean transportation official told the ship it might
have to evacuate.
The recommendation by the
unidentified official at the Jeju Vessel Traffic Services Center came at
9 a.m., just five minutes after a distress call by the Sewol. In the
exchange, the Sewol crewmember says: "Currently the body of the ship has
listed to the left. The containers have listed as well."
The
Jeju VTS officer responds: "OK. Any loss of human life or injuries?"
The ship's answer is: "It's impossible to check right now. The body of
the ship has tilted, and it's impossible to move."
The VTS officer then says: "Yes, OK. Please wear life jackets and prepare as the people might have to abandon ship."
"It's hard for people to move," replies the crew member on the radio.
Oh
Yong-seok, a helmsman on the ferry, told the AP that the first
instructions from the captain were for passengers to put on life jackets
and stay where they were as the crew tried to control the ship.
About
30 minutes later, the captain finally gave the order to evacuate, Oh
said, adding that he wasn't sure if, in the confusion and chaos on the
bridge, the order was relayed to the passengers. Several survivors told
the AP that they never heard any evacuation order.
Lee,
the captain, made a brief, videotaped appearance with his face hidden
by a gray hoodie. "I am really sorry and deeply ashamed," Lee said. "I
don't know what to say."
Three vessels with
cranes arrived at the accident site to prepare to salvage the ferry. But
they will not hoist the ship before getting approval from family
members of those still believed inside because the lifting could
endanger any survivors, said a coast guard officer, speaking on
condition of anonymity, citing department rules.
On
Jindo, angry and distraught relatives watched the rescue attempts. Some
held a Buddhist prayer ritual, crying and praying for their relatives.
"I
want to jump into the water with them," said Park Geum-san, 59, the
great-aunt of a missing student, Park Ye-ji. "My loved one is under the
water and it's raining. Anger is not enough."
Chonghaejin
Marine Co. Ltd, in Incheon, the operator of the ferry, added more cabin
rooms to three floors after its 2012 purchase of the ship, which was
built in Japan in 1994, an official at the private Korean Register of
Shipping told the AP.
The official, who spoke
on condition of anonymity because the matter was still under
investigation, said the extension work between October 2012 and February
2013 increased the Sewol's weight by 187 tons and added enough room for
117 more people. The Sewol had a capacity of 921 when it sank.
As
is common in South Korea, the ship's owner paid for a safety check by
the Korean Register of Shipping, which found that the Sewol passed all
safety tests, including whether it could stabilize in the event of
tilting, the official said.
Prosecutors raided
and seized materials and documents from the ship's operator, as well as
six companies that had conducted safety checks, revamped the ship, or
loaded container boxes, a sign that investigators will likely examine
the ship's addition of rooms and how containers were loaded.
