Fisherman Kim Hyun-ho finds no peace
when he lies down at night. The hundreds of dead or missing passengers from the
Sewol ferry disaster haunt his sleep.
Their screams ring in his head. He
has vivid memories of his rush to save them in his modest fishing boat off
South Korea's coast 10 days ago.
Kim thinks he may have pulled 25
people from the frigid waters of the Yellow Sea, said Saturday. But the man
from a nearby tiny island of just 100 people feels no pride, only torment.
"
It was hell. Agonizing. There
were a lot of people and not enough boats, people in the water yelling for
help. The ferry was sinking fast," he said.
He watched
people trapped inside go under with the vessel yards in front of him. Then he
heard on television how many people were sealed up in the ship
So far, rescuers have retrieved 187 bodies. An additional 115 people remain missing.
The father of two grown children is
heartbroken for the hundreds of parents who have lost theirs, those he could
not save.
He's trying to fish again, but he's
a changed man, he says.
Reprieve from watery terror
Divers recovering bodies from inside
the upended ferry, inundated with murky water, got a brief reprieve Saturday
from the horrors they've seen in its dark, cavernous entrails.
Strong currents led the joint task
force to suspend Saturday's dives for at least four hours.
On Friday, they found the bodies of
48 girls -- wearing their life jackets -- pressed into a room too small for so
many people.
Divers believe that they will face
the same scene again. There may be a second, similar room, where 50 more girls
are believed to have been trapped when the ferry rolled over.
South Korean Coast Guard diver Kim
Dong-soo said he had tears in his eyes when he heard about the accident.
"Even now, I'm searching as if
I'm looking for my own children -- and other Coast Guards feel the same
way," he told CNN. "I have two medical patches on me, have difficulty
breathing and my head hurts. But it hurts the most in my heart, knowing those
children are still in the cold water."
When they plunge into the water
again later Saturday, five U.S. Navy rescue specialists will assist their
search in a supporting role from outside the search zone.
The divers will face a search that
is getting harder and slower.
There may be fewer bodies to
retrieve, but divers have already searched the easily accessible places, said
South Korean navy Capt. Kim Jin-hwang, commander of the rescue operation.
"But the navy will not stop
until the last body is found," he said.
Now they will head down deep for
cabins near the seabed.
In the cramped spaces, divers have
been battling a forest of floating objects and doors forced shut by enormous
water pressure. Currents tug at the breathing tubes that keep them alive as
they look for the dead.
Civilian diver Chun Kwan-geung, one
of the many rescuers working in the murky waters, spoke of breaking out windows
to get to the lower decks of the ship, which now lies on its right side on the
seafloor some 240 feet below the surface.
Legal ramifications
As the effort inside the ship
continues, South Korean authorities are pressing a criminal investigation into
the sinking.
It's resulted in the arrests of the
ship's captain and 14 other members. Prosecutors in Mokpo, South Korea, who are
leading the ferry investigation tell CNN that all the 15 crew members in charge
of sailing and the engine room have been indicted and are being held in the
Mokpo Prison.
Yang Joong-Jin, the senior
prosecutor for the investigation task force, said they all face charges of
"causing death by abandoning (ship), and violation of the country's marine
law, the Rescue and Aid at Sea and in the River Act.
Investigators also searched the
company that owned the ferry and the home of the man whose family controls it,
and conducted a wide-ranging probe into the country's marine industry.
Prosecutors have said that
authorities have yet to determine what caused the sinking.
Leading theories include changes
made to increase the ferry's passenger capacity and shifting cargo.
On Friday, investigators checked out
the Sewol's sister ship, the Ohamana, and said they found 40 of its life rafts
weren't working, emergency slides to help evacuate passengers were inoperable,
and equipment to tie down cars and cargo either was nonexistent or didn't work
very well.
Like the Sewol, the Ohamana had been
modified to add more passengers, the prosecutor's office said.
Investigators are looking into
whether those modifications could have contributed to the Sewol's fate.
Kim Yong-rok, an opposition lawmaker
who represents Jindo, an island near where the ship sank, told CNN that
modifications to add 117 more passenger cabins to the ship raised the ferry's
center of gravity.
On Friday, the South Korean Ministry
of Oceans and Fisheries announced it would ask lawmakers to consider
legislation prohibiting modifications to ships to increase passenger capacity.
No comments:
Post a Comment