Order to evacuate came too late for passengers on sinking ferry
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THERE was no immediate evacuation order issued on the ferry that sank off South Korea’s southern coast because officers on the bridge were trying to stabilize the vessel after it started to list amid confusion and chaos, a crew member said yesterday.
The first instructions from the captain were for the passengers to put on life jackets and stay put, and it was not until about 30 minutes later that he ordered an evacuation, Oh Yong-seok, a 58-year-old crew member, said.
But he wasn’t sure if the captain’s order, given to crew members, was actually relayed to passengers on the public address system.
Several survivors said they never heard any evacuation order.
The loss of that precious time may have deprived many passengers of the opportunity to escape as The Sewol sank on Wednesday, not too far from the southern city of Mokpo.
Meanwhile, the coast guard said it was investigating whether the ferry’s captain was one of the first people to have left the sinking ship.
Twenty people, including a female crew member, at least five students and two teachers, were confirmed dead by coast guard officials last night. But the toll was expected to jump amid fears that the 276 missing passengers — many of them high school students — were dead. Coast guard officials put the number of survivors at 179.
Video footage shot by a survivor, truck driver Kim Dong-soo, shows the vessel listing severely as people in life jackets cling to the side of the ship to keep from sliding. A loudspeaker announcement can be heard telling passengers to stay in their quarters.
The search for the missing was hampered by strong currents, rain and bad visibility yesterday.
There were 475 people on board, including 325 students on a school trip to the tourist island of Jeju in the south of the country. The ferry had traveled overnight from Incheon on the northwestern coast of South Korea, and was three hours short of its destination when it began to list. The cause is not yet known.
The Sewol now sits — with just part of its keel visible — in waters off Mokpo, about 470 kilometers from Seoul.
Oh, a helmsman on the ferry with 10 years’ shipping experience, said that when the crew gathered on the bridge and sent a distress call the ship was already listing more than 5 degrees, the critical angle at which the ship can be brought back to an even keel.
At about that time, a third mate reported that the ship could not be righted, and the captain ordered another attempt, which also failed, Oh said. A crew member then tried to reach a lifeboat but tripped, prompting the first mate to suggest to the captain that everyone should evacuate.
The captain agreed and ordered an evacuation, but Oh said that amid the confusion and chaos on the bridge he does not recall the message being conveyed on the public address system.
By then it was impossible for crew members to move to passengers’ rooms to help them because the ship was at an impossibly acute angle. The delay in evacuation also likely prevented lifeboats being deployed.
“We couldn’t even move one step. The slope was too big,” said Oh, who escaped with about a dozen others, including the captain.
Passenger Koo Bon-hee, 36, said many people were trapped inside because windows were too hard to break. He wanted to escape earlier but an announcement said passengers should stay put.
“The rescue wasn’t done well. We were wearing life jackets. We had time,” Koo, who was on a business trip to Jeju with a co-worker, said from a hospital bed in Mokpo where he was treated for minor injuries.
“If people had jumped into the water ... they could have been rescued. But we were told not to go out.”
It is not clear if the captain’s actions violated any procedures, and he may have believed it was still possible to control the vessel, which would have made an order to evacuate unnecessary.
Parents of the students yesterday gathered at Danwon High School in Ansan, which is near Seoul, while other relatives assembled on Jindo, an island near where the ferry slipped beneath the surface.
In Mokpo, relatives of the dead students sobbed as ambulances drove away with the bodies, headed to Ansan. The families, who spent a mostly sleepless night at a Mokpo hospital, followed the ambulances in their cars. At the school, some desperate relatives lashed out in frustration, screaming threats at journalists. On Jindo Island, also near the accident site, one woman passed out and was carried to an ambulance.
While more than 400 rescuers searched nearby waters, coast guard spokesman Kim Jae-in said that in the next two days, three vessels with cranes onboard would arrive to help with the rescue and salvage the ship.
Divers were working in shifts in an attempt to get inside the vessel, he said.
“I am really sorry and deeply ashamed,” a man identified by broadcaster YTN and Yonhap news agency as the captain, 68-year-old Lee Joon-seok, said in brief comments shown on TV, his face hidden beneath a gray hoodie.
“I don’t know what to say.”
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