S Korean authorities given flak for ferry rescue efforts

JINDO (SOUTH KOREA) — The South Korean authorities have been accused of being slow to react and for lack of information on the rescue operation for a capsized South Korean ferry, as the country’s President yesterday faced the anguished relatives of missing students who were on board the vessel.

“I am really angry with the government,” said Ms Kwak Hyun-ok, whose daughter was one of 340 children and teachers from a school on the vessel, which had been carrying 475 passengers and crew. “There is no meaning to life without my daughter,” she told Reuters.

South Korean President Park Geun-hye was met with angry shouts, shrieks and wailing from the relatives when she visited an indoor gymnasium on the island of Jindo, 18km from where the ferry sank on Wednesday morning, that officials had turned into a temporary shelter for the families of the missing.

“We will make every effort to rescue up to the last person,” Ms Park said as she stood on a gymnasium stage, flanked by officials at a meeting shown on YTN TV. Some people yelled insults, while others demanded a live broadcast of rescue operations, a full list of people who were on board the ferry and an increase in the number of divers assigned to the search.

“I will order my officials to fulfil what you asked for, or else the officials standing here will have to take responsibility and resign,” Ms Park said.

The Jindo gymnasium was a cauldron of emotion yesterday. 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.

At one point, a police officer came to apologise 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 officer, before jumping onto the podium and punching and kicking him.

“My child is alive in there!” he shouted repeatedly until he was hauled away by other parents.

When Prime Minister Chung Hong-won visited the gymnasium yesterday morning, he was jostled and shouted at, and water bottles were thrown at him.

“Don’t run away, Mr Prime Minister!” a mother was quoted by AFP as saying, as she blocked Mr Chung from leaving. “Please tell us what you’re planning to do.”

The country’s leading conservative daily, Chosun Ilbo, which has been mostly supportive of Ms Park’s government, said in an editorial yesterday: “The government floundered, unable even to count the number of those missing correctly. 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 ship’s operation as well as rescue efforts.

Confusion surrounded official statements about the sinking of the ferry on Wednesday. The government, at one point, said 368 were rescued, while the ship’s owner and operator Chonghaejin Marine said 90 passengers were unaccounted for.

Many of the mistakes were caused by double-counting, Vice-Security Minister Lee Gyeong-og said at a televised press briefing. The total number of people on the ferry was also revised repeatedly.

As frustration grew, some parents of missing schoolchildren hired their own boat on Wednesday night.

“Since the government refused to take us to the scene, 11 parents chipped in 61,000 won (S$73) each to hire a boat and took a reporter and a diver. But there was no rescue operation going on,” said a father, who declined to give his name.

A coastguard official in Jindo said the waters where the ferry had capsized have some of the strongest tides off South Korea’s coast, meaning that divers were prevented from entering the mostly submerged ship for several hours.

Ms Park took a boat to the rescue site, where she urged the dive teams to keep working despite the dangers.

“Time is running out. Please hurry,” the President said. “If there are survivors, every minute and second is critical.” AGENCIES