Death toll from South Korea ferry sinking passes 100

Prosecutors sought to arrest four more crew members from the South Korean ferry that sank last week as they raced to unravel the mysteries surrounding the sinking, which left more than 300 people dead or missing in one of the country’s worst peacetime disasters.

Three of the four ship’s mates who were on the ferry, the Sewol, when it tilted and capsized last Wednesday were detained yesterday, as was the ferry’s chief engineer.

Today, prosecutors asked the court to allow them to arrest the four on a charge of contributing to the death of passengers by abandoning them during an emergency.

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Parents of Danwon High School students rescued from the ferry Sewol’s sinking issue a statement calling for swift government measures to search for missing students during a news conference at an education office in Ansan, south of Seoul, South Korea, today. Photograph: EPA

The engineer, whom prosecutors identified only by his surname, Mr Park, was one of the first members of the crew to leave the vessel as it was sinking, according to at least two crew members interviewed in recent days.

Prosecutors already arrested the Sewol’s captain, Lee Jun-seok, on Saturday, along with another ship’s mate and a helmsman, both of whom were on duty in the wheelhouse when the ferry began to sink. The three face criminal charges including accidental homicide.

Mr Lee is also charged with abandoning his passengers at a time of crisis, which is punishable by life in prison.

The detention of the four additional crew members, a likely prelude to their formal arrests, came as president Park Geun-hye called for stiff punishment for those responsible for the disaster.

She said that the decision of some crew members to flee the ship was “like a murderous act that can never be understood or forgiven”.

“They escaped first, abandoning the passengers while asking them to stay put,” Ms Park said.

“Legally and morally speaking, this is something one cannot even imagine.”

The 6,825-ton Sewol was sailing from Incheon, a port west of Seoul, to the southern resort island of Jeju when it tilted and capsized on Wednesday morning.

Prosecutors were investigating, among other things, passengers’ statements that they had been urged repeatedly to stay inside the ship even as it was listing badly, as well as the decision by the captain and other crew members to leave.

Rescuers were today continuing the grim, perilous task of searching for the missing within the submerged vessel.

By this morning, the confirmed death toll stood at 104, with 198 people still missing, the vast majority of them high school students.

New York Times