Carrying 459 people, of whom 368 people had been rescued
The ship has a capacity of about 900 people, an overall length of 146 metres (480 feet) and it weighs 6,586 gross tonnes. Shipping records show it was built in Japan in 1994.
South Korea , Almost 300 people
were missing after a ferry sank off South Korea on Wednesday, the coastguard
said, in what could be the country's biggest peacetime disaster in nearly 20
years.
The ferry was carrying 459 people,
of whom 164 were rescued, coastguard officials said. Two people were confirmed
dead after the ferry listed heavily onto its side and capsized in apparently
calm conditions off South Korea's southwest coast. The Ministry of Security and
Public Administration had earlier reported that 368 people had been rescued and
that about 100 were missing.But it later described those figures as a
miscalculation, turning what had first appeared to be a largely successful
rescue operation into potentially a major disaster.The cause of the disaster
was not immediately clear although some survivors reported that the ship
appeared to have been involved in some sort of impact.
"It was fine then the ship
went 'boom' and there was a noise of cargo falling," said Cha Eun-ok, who
said she was on deck of the ferry taking photographs when the disaster began."The
on-board announcement told people to stay put ... people who stayed are
trapped," she said in Jindo, the nearest town from the scene of the
accident.There was confusion about the total number of passengers on board, as
authorities revised the figure down from 477 saying some had been double
counted, amid growing frustration and anger among families of the passengers.Many
of the passengers were children and their teachers from a high school in Seoul
on a field trip to Jeju island, about 100 km (60 miles) south of the Korean
peninsula.
As well the passengers, there were
150 vehicles on board the ferry Sewol, officials said. Witnesses said many
people were likely still inside the vessel.An official from the Danwon High
School in Ansan, a Seoul suburb, had earlier said all of its 338 students and
teachers had been rescued but that could not be confirmed by the coastguard or
other officials involved in the rescue. The school official asked not to be
identified.
So sad
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