Survivors of Korean ferry recall a sharp turn, then chaos

Jindo, South Korea: It was a trip that the second-year students at Danwon High School had been eagerly awaiting, a last chance for fun before a gruelling year of studying for the national university entrance exam. Soon after their ship left the port of Incheon on Tuesday night, the students celebrated by launching fireworks from the deck.

About 12 hours later, everything went terribly wrong. Their ferry, the 6,825-ton Sewol, bound for the resort island of Jeju, tilted to the left for as-yet-unexplained reasons shortly before 9 a.m. Wednesday and began sinking in the blue-grey waters off southwestern South Korea.

There were 325 students among the 475 people believed aboard the ship, and more than 24 hours later, with bad weather having largely stymied a second day of search operations, 285 passengers were still missing and feared dead.

As of Thursday evening, the confirmed death toll was at 11, and 179 passengers had been rescued. Rain, strong currents and poor visibility underwater hampered the efforts of divers from South Korea's navy and coast guard to search the sunken ship.

It is unclear why the Sewol leaned so far to port before sinking, and why so many aboard the ship were unable to escape, even though it took nearly 2 1/2 hours for the vessel to capsize and all but disappear underwater. Interviews on Thursday with survivors, relatives, crew members and investigators offered a vivid picture of how the trip turned into a catastrophe, and possibly into South Korea's worst disaster in decades.

"The government floundered, unable even to count the number of those missing correctly," the country's leading conservative daily, Chosun Ilbo, which has been mostly supportive of the government of President Park Geun-hye, said in an editorial Thursday. "Above all, the people must have felt deeply that South Korea is a country that doesn't value human lives."

It cited "unspeakable mistakes and errors" in the ferry's operation and in the rescue efforts.

"Bring my child back alive!" some parents yelled Thursday, when Park visited an indoor gymnasium on Jindo Island, 11 miles from the site of the sinking, that local officials had turned into a shelter for grieving families. Park promised "all available resources" for the rescue, and a "thorough investigation and stern punishment for those responsible."

According to survivors, the students were having a morning break after breakfast, roaming through the floors in small groups and taking pictures on the deck, when the ship began tipping over.

When the situation became critical, survivors said, many students were still on the third floor, where the cafeteria and game rooms were.

"I don't remember that there was any safety instruction before we boarded the ship," said Kim Su-bin, 16, a Danwon student who climbed out of the sinking ship and jumped into the water. "Life jackets were on the fourth floor where the sleeping cabins were, but those who were on the third floor at the time had no life jackets."

Han Hee-min, another 16-year-old student, said all had gone smoothly until he felt the ship "turning too sharply" around 9 a.m. Wednesday.

Investigators who questioned the ferry's captain, Lee Jun-seok, 69, on Thursday said the vessel had made a sharp turn to the left around the time it began to tilt. The Sewol had been sailing slightly off its usual course, they said, and Lee had apparently tried to steer it back. But it was unclear why he had tried such a turn in waters known for their strong currents, or why the turn had caused the ship to lean to one side.

The captain, in a brief appearance before reporters Thursday, provided little clarity. "I can't raise my face before the passengers and family members of the missing," he said. Officials have said Lee, who has been criticized for being among the first to leave the ship, could face criminal charges.

An investigator, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the government had not yet reached its final conclusions, said it was possible that the ferry's cargo - which included 180 trucks and cars, and more than 1,100 tons of cargo in shipping containers - had not been tied down properly.

"That might have loosened them and caused them to slide to one side when the ship made its turn, and helped cause the ship to tilt out of control," the investigator said.

Inside the ship, chaos unfolded, survivors said, as a wall and the floor seemed to exchange positions. Bottles and dishes overturned. The ship's twisting stairways suddenly became almost impossible to negotiate. Passengers were tossed to one side as if they were riding a slide. Trays and soup bowls overturned, said Song Ji-cheol, a college student who worked part time at the cafeteria.

"The gas burst and all of a sudden, we were submerged," he said. "I tried to hold on to the tables but they were moving around, too."

At some point, some survivors said, the lights went out.

"When the ship began tilting, there was a thudding noise and I thought it was the noise made by students bumping into the walls," one passenger, Han Hee-min, said Thursday in a hospital in Ansan, the city south of Seoul where Danwon High School is situated. "I had a life jacket so I floated. Some friends grabbed my leg and I don't know what happened to them."

Grainy video footage made with a smartphone, and sent to a relative while the ship was sinking, showed frightened passengers huddled in the corner of a room as a voice on the ship's intercom urged people to "stay inside and wait because the cabins are safer." Another student, Gwon Ji-hyuck, 16, said he had heard that broadcast. Sixty to 70 students clogged a narrow corridor while their teacher shouted at them to remain calm, he said.

"My teacher distributed life jackets to the last minute and led us calmly," said Han Sang-hyuk, 16, in tears, referring to Nam Yun-cheol, one of the two teachers found dead.

Han Sang-hyuk, a student, blamed the ship crew's instruction for the high number of missing people, saying that those who stayed in their rooms or were caught in small alleyways between corridors would not have been able to escape. But Kim Su-bin, the Danwon student who survived by climbing out of the ship, thanked Park Ji-young, a member of the crew who was found dead Wednesday, for calming the students and staying behind without a life jacket after helping students get out.

The ship's communications officer, Kang Hae-seong, 32, said he and Park had to make a quick decision. They thought that if passengers fled in a panicked rush, it could make matters worse, he said. Kang said the ship's crew had studied the manual on fire drills but never had an evacuation simulation. Few of the ship's 60 life rafts were used.

"I repeatedly told people to calm themselves and stay where they were for an hour," he said from his hospital bed on Jindo. "I didn't have time to look at the manual for evacuation."

Shin Seong-hee, a Danwon student, was among those who heeded the advice. In a text message she sent to her father, she said she had been told by the ship's crew that "it was more dangerous to move." Her father texted back: "I know the rescuers are coming but why don't you try to come outside?"

"I can't because the ship is tilting too much," she replied in a text that was shown to a reporter by her sister, Shin Seong-ah, on Thursday. Shin Seong-hee has not been heard from since.

Another student, Shin Yong-jin, texted to his mother: "Mom, I say this now because I may never be able to say it: I love you." Shin made it out of the ship.

The indoor gymnasium on Jindo Island was a cauldron of emotion Thursday as desperate parents waited to hear news of their children.

Hundreds of mothers, fathers and relatives sat dejectedly on the floor, some wrapped in blankets. Some shrieked and collapsed, and were tended to by medical workers. The police were investigating fabricated lists of survivors circulating online that gave parents false hopes.

At one point, a police officer came to apologize for delays in a plan to pump oxygen into the sunken ship, in case some passengers were still alive. "You liar!" a father shouted at the police officer, before jumping onto the podium and punching and kicking him.

"My child is alive in there!" the man shouted repeatedly until he was hauled away by other parents.