Yahoo – AFP,
Jung Yeon-Je, 16 April
 |
Relatives
of missing people wait at a Jindo port on April 16, 2014 in
Jindo-gun, South
Korea. (Photo by Chung Sung-Jun/Getty Images)
|
Jindo
(South Korea) (AFP) - South Korean rescuers and dive teams worked frantically
under floodlights as fears rose for nearly 300 people missing after a ferry
sank Wednesday with 462 on board, mostly high school students bound for a holiday
island.
National
disaster agency officials said 174 people had been rescued, leaving 284
"unaccounted for". There were four confirmed deaths, including a
female crew member and a student.
There are
concerns the death toll could rise sharply. The 6,825-tonne Sewol listed
violently, capsized and finally sank -- all within two hours of sending a
distress signal at 9:00am (0000 GMT).
"I'm
afraid there's little chance for those trapped inside still to be alive,"
one senior rescue team official, Cho Yang-Bok, told YTN television as divers
struggled to access the submerged multi-deck ferry.
Dramatic
television footage showed terrified passengers wearing life jackets clambering
into inflatable boats with water lapping over the rails of the vessel as it
sank 20 kilometres (13 miles) off the southern island of Byungpoong.
Some slid
down the steeply inclined side of the ferry and into the water as rescuers,
including the crew of what appeared to be a small fishing boat, pulled them to
safety.
Told 'not
to move'
As night
fell the coastguard said the rescue operation was continuing using floodlights
and underwater flares.
"We
won't give up, although the situation is extremely worrying," a coastguard
spokesman said.
Several
rescued passengers said they had initially been told to remain in their cabins
and seats, but then the ferry listed hard to one side, triggering panic.
 |
Updated map
showing the area off the south coast of South Korea where
a ship carrying 477
people capsized on Wednesday (AFP Photo/Adrian
Leung/John Saeki)
|
"The
crew kept telling us not to move," one male survivor told the YTN news
channel.
"Then
it suddenly shifted over and people slid to one side and it became very
difficult to get out," he added.
The
passengers included 325 students from a high school in Ansan just south of
Seoul, who were travelling with their teachers to the popular island resort of
Jeju.
"I
feel so pained to see students on a school trip... face such a tragic accident.
I want you to pour all your energy into this mission," President Park
Geun-Hye said on a visit to the disaster agency's situation room in Seoul.
Many of the
survivors were plucked from the water by fishing and other commercial vessels
who were first on the scene before a flotilla of coastguard and navy ships
arrived, backed by more than a dozen helicopters.
Lee
Gyeong-Og, the vice minister of security and public administration, said 178
divers, including a team of South Korean navy SEALS, were working at the site,
but low water visibility and strong currents were hampering their efforts.
The US 7th
Fleet sent an amphibious assault ship on patrol in the area to help.
One local
official, who had taken a boat to the site an hour after the distress signal
was sent, said he was "very concerned" about those still missing.
"The
ship was already almost totally submerged when I got there. A lot of people
must have been trapped," the official, who declined to be identified, told
AFP by phone.
'A big
thumping sound'
The cause
of the accident in fine weather was not immediately clear, although rescued
passengers reported the ferry coming to a sudden, shuddering halt -- indicating
it may have run aground.
"I
heard a big thumping sound and the boat suddenly started to tilt," one
rescued student said.
Another
spoke of luggage and vending machines crashing down on passengers as the vessel
tipped over.
"Everyone
was screaming and a lot of people were bleeding badly," he said.
Distraught
parents gathered at the high school in Ansan, desperate for news, with some
yelling at school officials while others repeatedly tried to call their
children's mobiles.
"I'm
so worried about my son," said one father, Lee Ki-Hong. "I texted him
an hour before the ship sank, but there has been no reply," he told YTN.
Survivors
were taken to a gymnasium on nearby Jindo island, where relatives of the
missing, wrapped in blankets against the cold, were holding what looked set to
be a night-long vigil on the quay of the main harbour.
Three giant
floating cranes had been despatched to the site and would begin operations to
raise the submerged vessel tomorrow, officials said.
Scores of
ferries ply the waters between the South Korean mainland and its multiple
offshore islands every day, and accidents are relatively rare.
In one of
the worst incidents, nearly 300 people died when a ferry capsized off the west
coast in October 1993
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